Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 9, 1994 TAG: 9401090087
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D3 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
LYNCHBURG - The U.S. Defense Department has awarded a $6 million contract to make torpedo warheads to Babcock & Wilcox in Campbell County.
Babcock & Wilcox will produce more than 200 conventional warheads for the MK-50 torpedo, a lightweight projectile that can be launched by air, surface ship or submarine.
Babcock & Wilcox will make the warheads' metal casings, some internal metal parts and control cable assemblies, said Darrel Kohlhorst, general manager of Babcock & Wilcox's manufactured systems and technologies division in the Campbell County community of Mt. Athos.
Babcock & Wilcox has produced similar warhead components for the MK-50 and MK-48 warheads.
Work on the contract, which was agreed to Tuesday, will begin immediately, Kohlhorst said. Babcock & Wilcox will ship the first units to the naval systems division of general contractor Westinghouse Corp. in about seven or eight months.
The contract should be finished by December 1995, Kohlhorst said. - Associated Press
\ Rare cow disease may have killed 100
COURTLAND - Veterinarians say a rare bovine disease with pneumonia-like symptoms may have killed at least 100 cows and caused hundreds more to become ill on Southside farms since late October.
The problem, which has plagued beef producers in at least four counties, may be linked to hay made from peanut vines, veterinarians said.
Southampton County has been hit the worst. A Virginia Tech extension agent has estimated that 1,000 cows there have developed the symptoms in recent months.
Four of the cows died after eating peanut-vine hay and were diagnosed with acute bovine pulmonary emphysema, according to a veterinary diagnostician with the state Department of Agriculture. - Associated Press
\ Hampton Roads ready to defend Navy base
VIRGINIA BEACH - The Navy could close Oceana Naval Air Station in the next round of base closings unless more fighter jets are assigned to the base, Tidewater community leaders say.
Oceana must try win the Navy's fleet of carrier-based F/A-18 Hornets, with 200 planes and 4,000 personnel, to survive the 1995 cuts of the base closing commission, according to area officials.
The F/A-18s are scheduled to move in the next two to six years to Cherry Point Marine Air Station near Havelock, N.C. The base closing commission last year ordered the planes' old base, Cecil Field near Jacksonville, Fla., to close.
Oceana escaped the base-closing ax last year by arguing it was the only base on the East Coast that could service F-14 Tomcat fighter jets. But the Clinton administration has since announced that budget cuts will accelerate the retirement of F-14 squadrons and will force an early phaseout of the base's other staple, the A-6 Intruder attack jets. - Associated Press
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.