ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, February 10, 1997 TAG: 9702100081
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
Plan halts hospital's ash woes
WILLIAMSBURG - After years of false starts and delays, the state mental health department has taken steps to stop coal ash from the Eastern State Hospital steam plant from washing into a nearby creek.
The department awarded a contract to a Hampton company to convert the plant to natural gas by Nov.1. Department officials have also agreed to remove 50 years' worth of layered coal ash a foot thick in places from the creek behind the plant by the spring of 1998.
The plant burns about 4,000 tons of coal a year to make steam for heat, cooking and the laundry on the hospital campus, said John Joyce, the hospital's director of building and grounds.
The agreement calls for the creek to be cleaned up by May 1, 1998.
- Associated Press
Man arrested in wife's death
CHATHAM - A Pittsylvania County man has been charged with murder in connection of the shooting death of his wife, police said.
Melissa Fay Holland Abbott, 31, died Saturday about 9 p.m. at her home on Blair Lane after receiving a single gunshot wound to the chest, said Maj. Gary Goodson Jr. with the Pittsylvania County Sheriff's Office.
Timothy Wayne Abbott, 34, was charged with his wife's murder and is being held in the Pittsylvania County Jail without bond, Goodson said.
An investigation into the cause of the shooting is continuing. The body has been sent to the medical examiner's office in Roanoke for an autopsy, police said.
- Associated Press
Soldier-pupil union helped both parties
WOODBRIDGE - World events seem a bit closer to home for some students at Manassas Park Elementary School after a visit from a local soldier, newly returned from duty in Bosnia.
Army Sgt. Kim Thwaits, a Fairfax native, was adopted by Pati Swan's third-grade class when he first was deployed to Bosnia in January 1996.
He's now based in Vilsek, Germany, but has returned to Fairfax to visit his mother, Carole Thwaits.
Thwaits was one of the initial 20,000-person U.S. contingent sent on a NATO peacekeeping mission in the country, which has been devastated by civil war.
Some of his thoughts and feelings about the Bosnian operation have been passed on to Swan's students through the exchange of letters and pictures.
``We've really learned a lot from Kim. I think the class understands more about the world now, even though a lot of what's happened in Bosnia is above the students' comprehension level,'' Swan said.
Thwaits said the exchange goes both ways. ``I loved their letters. They helped me stay connected to home, and I got a lot of insight from the kids. And at times, it took the monotony out of my daily routine.''
- Associated Press
Nuclear waste to bypass Portsmouth
PORTSMOUTH - Under pressure from an environmental group, the U.S. Department of Energy likely will bypass Hampton Roads with future shipments of nuclear waste from a government research laboratory in New York.
The decision would reverse plans to bring as many as 15 shipments of spent nuclear fuel rods from the Brookhaven National Laboratory through the Portsmouth Marine Terminal over the next decade.
From Portsmouth, the rods were to have been trucked to a federal facility in South Carolina for storage, said Michael Holland, director of nuclear programs at Brookhaven.
The plans proved controversial, however, when state and federal officials failed to tell Portsmouth officials that highly enriched uranium rods would soon be arriving. The Virginia chapter of the Sierra Club was highly critical of the transport plan.
It could take several months to redraw plans and obtain necessary approvals to switch travel arrangements. As envisioned, Holland said the fuel rods will now be barged down the Atlantic coast to Charleston Naval Weapons Station in South Carolina and then carried by rail or truck to the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., where they will be stored.
- Associated Press
LENGTH: Medium: 79 linesby CNB