The
IOLA REGISTER
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Monday, July 22, 2013
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Motor City a story of race, autos By SHARON COHEN AP National Writer
Blue-collar workers poured into the cavernous auto plants of Detroit for generations, confident that a sturdy back and strong work ethic would bring them a house, a car and economic security. It was a place where the American dream came true. It came true in cities across the industrial heartland, from Chicago’s meatpacking plants to the fire-belching steel mills of Cleveland and Pittsburgh. It came true for decades, as manufacturing brought prosperity to big cities in states around the Great Lakes and those who called them home. Detroit was the affluent capi-
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Detroit is an extreme case of problems that have afflicted every major old industrial city in the U.S.
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— Thomas Sugrue
tal, a city with its own emblematic musical sound and a storied union movement that drew Democratic presidential candidates to Cadillac Square every four years to kick off campaigns at Labor Day rallies. The good times would not last forever. As the nation’s economy began to shift from the business of making things, that line of work met the force of foreign competition. Good-paying assembly line jobs dried up as factories that made the cars and supplied the steel closed their doors. The survivors of the decline, especially whites, fled the cities to pursue new dreams in the suburbs. The “Arsenal of Democracy” that supplied the Allied victory of World War II and evolved into the “Motor City” fell into a six-decade downward spiral of job losses, shrinking population and a plummeting tax base. Detroit’s singular reliance on an auto industry that stumbled
In the pipeline Enbridge to route oil across county By BOB JOHNSON bob@iolaregister.com
Construction of the Enbridge crude oil pipeline from Flanagan, Ill., to Cushing, Okla., will start in early August. Enbridge and U.S. Pipeline, which will build the south half of the 600-mile transportation system, had a come-and-go open house here Thursday to appraise local folks of what to expect. Statistics are staggering. The steel pipeline will be constructed in 80-foot joints, 36 inches in diameter with half-inch thick walls. Each joint weighs 17,000 pounds with costs of about $17,000. The pipe, of recycled steel, is being produced in mills in Regina, Canada, and Oregon. According to Lorraine Little, an Enbridge public affairs officer, the pipeline will be constructed simultaneously in four 150-mile “spreads,” beginning next month. Michels Pipeline will lay the first 300 miles, U.S. Pipeline the second. Two years of preliminary work is drawing to a close, Little said. During that time surveys and right-of-way acquisition have occurred, as well historic, prehistoric, biological and environmental studies to ensure the pipeline’s construction won’t be a disruption. The construction phase is expected to take about a year, with the first crude oil flowing sometime next summer. Cost of the project has been put at $2.6 billion.
About 700 workers will be involved in construction of each 150-mile spread, with the intention of hiring half locally. In Allen County’s case that means workers hailing from eastern Kansas and western Missouri, said Kelly Osborn, president of U.S. Pipeline. Whenever possible, local vendors will be used, he added. The pipe joints will be stockpiled in 11 pipe yards along the project’s route including one at the north edge of Humboldt. Osborn said pipe should start arriving at the Humboldt yard in a week or so. While the pipe is steel, it has a fusionSee PIPELINE | Page A4
Map courtesy of Enbridge Inc./ Photo by Bob Johnson
Above is a map of the pipeline’s route, which begins in northern Illinois and traces southwest through MIssouri, Kansas and ending in Cushing, Okla. It runs directly through Humboldt. Below, Cara and Mitch Bolling visit with Adam Vehe, right, an environmental specialist, at an open house Thursday evening focusing on construction of the Enbridge pipeline through Allen County.
See DETROIT | Page A2
Rotary project aids vision By BOB JOHNSON bob@iolaregister.com
When Bob Hawk was in El Salvador with a Rotary team making eyeglasses for locals, a woman came whose vision was significantly impaired. With dexterity borne of having made many pairs, Hawk fashioned eyeglasses for the woman in a matter of about 15 minutes. A year later back in El Salvador, he made a point to look up the woman. Her life had changed. “She was making a living sewing doll clothes,” a vocation she couldn’t have pursued a year earlier because of her poor eyesight, Hawk said. That is one of many success stories Hawk recalls when talking about Iola Rotary’s Vision Quest program, some of which he related while giving a demonstration on how to quickly fashion a pair of glasses during the club’s meeting Thursday.
Register/Bob Johnson
Rotarians Bob Hawk, left, and Tom Brigham are with trophies that will be awarded at the Neil Westervelt Memorial Iola Rotary Club Car Show at the Allen County Fair. “Sixty to 70 percent of the world’s people can be helped,” Hawk said, with the simple eyeglasses he and others make from a kit containing Vol. 115, No.188
tools, materials and a jig. He made a pair Thursday, also in 15 minutes, to the See ROTARY | Page A4
NATIONAL
Woman killed on Six Flags coaster ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — A German roller coaster maker is sending officials to a North Texas amusement park to inspect a ride after a woman fell to her death. Tobias Lindnar, a project manager for Gerstlauer Amusement Rides in Munsterhausen, Germany, told The Dallas Morning News that the company will investigate what led to Friday’s fatal accident at Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington. Witnesses said the woman expressed concern about the Texas Giant roller coaster’s safety bar not completely engaging as the ride was starting. The coaster is touted as the tallest steel-hybrid roller coaster in the world. “I’m sure there’s no safety bar that is broken,” Lindnar told the newspaper by phone Saturday night from Germany. Lindnar said Gerstlauer 75 Cents
has never had problems with car safety bars on any of the roughly 50 roller coasters it’s built around the world over the past 30 years. “We will be on site and we will see what has happened,” he said. Park spokeswoman Sharon Parker confirmed in a statement Saturday that the victim died while riding the 14-story Texas Giant, but wouldn’t give specifics about what happened. Arlington Police Sgt. Christopher Cook told The Associated Press on Saturday that police believe the woman fell from the ride and that there appeared to have been no foul play. Arlington police have referred information about the woman’s identity to the medical examiner’s office in Tarrant County, which hadn’t disclosed her name as See COASTER | Page A4
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