Western Front - 1993 April 20

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Huxley students and Earth First! stop clear cuts... for a day
By Danette Reeff and
Haidee Jezek
staff reporters
The environmental groupEaith
First! staged a demonstration early
Monday against logging on
Blanchard Mountain.
The protest was over what it
said was mismanagement of the
forest lands by the Department of
Natural Resources (DNR).
When loggers representing Joe
Zender and Wilburn, a logging
company, arrived at the logging
site on Blanchard Mountain, 10
miles south of Bellingham, they
found access to the site blocked.
Throughout the night, protest­ers
had constructed four road
blocks of logs and debris, block­ing
the road every 100 yards.
Earth First! spokesman Tony
Van Gessell, a Bellingham resi­dent
and contractor, accused the
DNR of mismanaging the forest
lands and in the process, de­stroying
wildlife habitat..
"35 percent of the watershed
(was) cut. In the last 10 years, *
that's way more than it should
be," he said.
Van Gessel calculated the
percentage of forest cut by look­ing
at the last 10 years of the
Forest Practice Applications
(FPAs).
Protesters and loggers gath­ered
on the far sides of the road
blocks ~ about one-half mile apart,
visible to each other only from a
distance. Van Gessell was the only
protester to actively engaged in
discussion with the loggers, while
maintaining radio communica­tions
with the other 20 or so pro­testers.
The loggers called police as
soon as they discovered the pro­testers
and then sent some loggers
to another cutting sight
"Now these guys (loggers)
have to go home with no pay,"
said Marty Wilburn, a co-owner
of the logging firm. "The cost of
living is hard enough as it is."
The only protester to venture
near the waiting loggers was
handcuffed, questioned by police
and released.
Deming cutting contractorDan
Peitila said he understood what
the protesters were trying to do
but did not agree with their tactics.
"They say they 're targeting big
business," Peitila said. "But to­day
they're hurting us, the little
people. This site is still going to
be cut."
Peitila said DNR had already
made enough efforts to reach a
mutual agreement with concerned
local citizens groups.
"We've already compromised
a great deal on this job just to
accommodate aesthetics and
wildlife," Peitila said. "We've
been doing everything to meet
them half way, but they aren't
content with that."
"It hurts me to see how people
(protesters) can be ignorant... to
the fact that people (loggers) are
already struggling," said Greg
Zender another co-owner of the
See PROTEST, page 2
Photo by Matt Huibert:
An unidentified Western student is confronted by a
police officer before being arrested. She was released
a short time later.
Graphics and color blamed for textbook price increases
By Charity Proctor
special to the Front
As if college students don't have enough
money problems—the price of textbooks is
steadily going up.
The main reasons for the increases are the
growing use of colorand the support services,
such as videos, given to professors.
The Washington Post made this observa­tion
about college textbooks nationwide in
August 1992:
"Four-year private colleges told students
last year that they should expect to spend an
average of $496 a year for books, up 89
percent from 10 years ago, according to an
annual survey by the College Board."
By comparison, the consumer price index
rose 49.8 percent during that time, the Post
reported.
Improved graphics are one reason text­book
production costs have increased in
recent years, said Suzanna Zeitler, execu­tive
marketing manager for Harper Collins
Publishers.
"Obviously it's much more expensive to
print something in full color than in black
and white," she said.
Feedback from textbook reviewers led
to printing more graphics in books, she
said. Color is used most elaborately in
courses where it can help students under­stand
the material.
"(The use of graphics and color) has
been growing for the last eight to 10 years,"
Zeitler said. "Areas where color is used
most commonly include biology, history
and business."
But the visual aspect of textbooks ac­counts
for only part of high production
costs. Publishers also provide professors
with lecture and chapter outlines, transpar­encies,
test banks and videos to supplement
lectures.
A publisher may spend well over
$500,000 to launch one textbook — not
including paper, printing and binding costs,
Zeitler said.
But frequent improvements in technol­ogy
also factor into rising production costs,
said Wanda Boaz, a customer service rep­resentative
for Wads worth Publishing
Company.
"Binderies are always getting new ma­chinery
... as are the printers," Boaz said.
But don't call the bookstore to complain
about prices.
"We have no control on the price of text­books
here at the store," said George Elliott,
general manager of Western's Student Co­op
Bookstore. "We order what (the profes­sors)
tell us to order."
And when a professor orders a book, the
store can't shop around. Book publishers
own the rights to their authors' works.
"It's not like supplies, where you can
negotiate," Elliott said.
The bookstore makes a 4 percent profit on
textbooks—and sometimes doesn't even get
that.
"In a lot of cases we lose money when we
sell a textbook," Elliott said. "But that's why
we're here. We're a co-op; we try to pass
savings on to students at the register. We're
as upset as anybody about the price of text­books."
Lacrosse team hit for alcohol abuse
Open containers found in university van after away game
Photo by Jonathan Burton
Lacrosse team members wear their new "Big Blue"
logo, a consequence of an alcohol related infraction.
By Paul Peterman
staff reporter
Western's Men's Lacrosse
Sport Club has been suspended
from all membership privileges
in the sport club program through
spring 1993 in connection with its
misuse of alcohol while using a
university vehicle.
The Office of Campus
Recreation announced the
suspension on Friday. A memo to
the lacrosse team and the Sport
Club Council stated the reasons:
"The misuse of motor pool
vehicles, including the
transportation of alcoholic
beverages and the exceeding of
posted speed limits, and the misuse
of alcoholic beverages during
authorized travel as
representatives of Western and
theOffice of CampusRecreation."
The incidents leading to the
suspension happened on the
weekend of April 9, during the
team's trip to play a match in
Spokane.
Campus police told
Intramural Coordinator and Sport
Club Advisor Tony Onofrietti they
found alcoholic beverage
See LACROSSE, page 3