Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 10, 1994 TAG: 9404100096
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: TUCSON, ARIZ. LENGTH: Medium
John Polk Allen, generally credited with masterminding the $150 million private environmental experiment, sent a brief letter of resignation late Friday to Texas billionaire Ed Bass, said attorney Lawrence Hecker. Hecker represents a corporation that includes Allen and five other now-suspended top managers of Biosphere 2.
All six managers were suspended March 31 under a federal court order obtained by Bass.
Hecker said Saturday that Allen stepped down out of concern for the project and that he knew of no other pending resignations.
Allen's resignation was the latest in a series of tribulations jolting the troubled project.
On Friday, one of the seven residents of the glass-and-steel-domed complex left because of a family emergency involving his wife - the project's ousted president and chief executive officer.
On Wednesday, two former inhabitants of the self-contained environment about 35 miles north of Tucson were arrested for opening doors and letting in outside air. They were fired the next day.
Allen on Friday faxed a four-page letter to drug-culture guru Timothy Leary, asking him to distribute it on a computer network, a source told The Associated Press. In a copy of the fax provided by the source, Allen complained of poor pay, bemoaned the management shake-up, expressed safety concerns for the crew and called on Bass "to negotiate" and to "call off the seizure of assets, the playing with human lives . . . "
Contacted in Tokyo by the Los Angeles Times on Friday, Allen said "I feel that this was an unnecessary tragedy and I offer the hand of friendship to Ed Bass to reverse the ongoing calamity and put Biosphere 2 on sound footing for the future of humanity and science."
Bass could not be reached for comment.
Bass, also one of the partners with Allen and the five ousted officials of the managing venture, alleges financial mismanagement and waste in court documents that seek to dissolve the partnership.
by CNB