The Tennessean from Nashville, Tennessee • Page 33

Friday SEPTEMBER 27, 198S THE TENWESSEAW 0 I'D Postal Worker's Wife Takes Complaint to D.C. mmmmwmmmMMwmwW'' 1' 11 III1IIU 1111 ,7" Jj) 'Hf7 Epoxy Set For Cracks In Bridges DWIGHT LEWIS Staff Writer All of the identifiable cracks in the newly constructed Interstate 440 overpasses are believed to have been found and contractors will begin repairs Monday, Department of Transportation officials said yesterday. During a morning press conference at the six-bridge interchange at Interstate 65 in the Melrose area, state officials also said that the 2.5-mile portion of the loop that connects Interstates 24 and 65 will be opened about the latter part of November. "The two contractors involved in the work have chosen to use an epoxy injection method to fix the cracks," said Qellon Loveall, civil engineer director for structures for the transportation department "Epoxy a glue-like substance is stronger than the concrete on the bridges and will be as permanent as the bridges. It will be here longer than our lifetime," Loveall said.

This past spring, "hundreds" of hairline cracks were discovered in a little over 1,000 of the 2,000 panels on the undersides of nine overpasses on 1-24 and 1-65. Cracks were also discovered in panels as they were installed on the Marlborough Avenue bridge and on a ramp at the 1-40 interchange in West Nashville, but the latter cracks have already been ter an internal report concluded of the service that "a dramatic decline in morale and an increase in frustration and cynicism is hindering the potential of the fraud program" Many of the inspectors that have been transferred under the policy have been taken not only from small rural areas, but from larger cities, like Dallas, Mineapolis-St Paul and Memphis, according to Gore and Bell. "The policy has virtually halted inspection in rural areas," Gore said. "An elderly woman in Carthage, for example, who has her Social Security check stolen can't even get it investigated because the the Postal Service has decided that it's not important" Gore, whose home is at Carthage, said a new set of priorities brought on because of the transfers "essentially tells officials to ignore stolen checks and crimes that don't involve a big conspiracy of some kind," and has depleted the number of investigators in rural areas. "While it is fine for them to go after the big conspiracy, it is intolerable for them to legalize check theft," Gore said.

Bell's husband, Arnold, 51, was a postal inspector in Nashville for two years while the couple lived in Franklin before they moved to Bessemer, where he is now the postmaster of the local post office where he earns less money. "He was forced to take that job because they offered only two locations in the entire South," Bell said, i KEVIN ELLIS Staff Writer The wife of a former Nashville postal inspector told Sea Albert Gore Jr. yesterday how U.S. Postal Inspection Service policies forced her husband to take a lower paying job. Patricia Bell, 38, flew to Washington, D.C, to brief Gore about how the service's "Career Path Policy," which transfers senior inspectors from small towns to selected larger cities, forced the couple to leave Nashville so her husband could take a different job in Bessemer, Ala To make matters worse, according to Bell, she has a genetic heart condition that is adversely affected by the air quality in Bessemer, but the Postal Inspection Service refused to grant her a hardship waiver.

"The Postal Service has been critically damaged by an idiotic personnel policy that has decimated the ranks of experienced inspectors and has undermined the ability of the service to investigate and prosecute crimes," Gore said. Gore, as the ranking Democrat on the Senate subcommittee on post offices, is holding hearings today on the matter. He began an investigation of the Postal Inspection Service last June, partly at the request of Bell, who said she has been fighting to change the policy for three years. She will be in the audience today as Gore questions top postal inspection officials about the policy, which was instituted in 1980. Gore launched the investigation af KaWMn Smith Staff State Engineer Clellon Loveall shows core samples from cracked overpasses on 1-440.

fall," he said. Loveall said officials are not sure exactly how the cracks occurred, but possibly happened in the manufacturing process, installation or while the panels were being transported. "Something just went wrong," he said. Meanwhile, the entire 7.1-mile loop, which will connect 1-24, 1-65 and Interstate 40 in West Nashville, is scheduled for completion late next summer. The project is more than eight months behind schedule.

I "The final concrete topping had already been poured on the bridges when we found the first set of cracks, so it was not as easy to repair them as it was the last set," Loveall said. "The latter panels were rejected at the job site and replaced." Loveall said the Randall which built the 1-65 interchange, and RAM Contractors which built the three overpasses at 1-24 will assume the expense for making the repairs. "As far as we're concerned, it's the contractors' expense," the transportation official said. Loveall also said that officials believe the cracks found so far are the only ones that will occur. He said testing has been done with the epoxy injection method and shows that the overpasses will be able to carry required loads.

Loveall added that if the repairs were not made, "it would more than likely cause us an extreme maintenance problem. "We would not let the bridges de-terioate to the point that they would Explorer Plans New Trip To Get Noah's Ark Proof Madison Man Convinced His Find Is Genuine RAY WADDLE 986 'OLBOBILES EbmmI 'Only Hippodrome would dare make this offer, You pay dealer cost plus taxes, license, and dealer added accessories on new 1986 Oldsmobiles (Not 1 year old 85 models). Officials from the National Laboratory accompanied Wyatt on his last two journeys, in May and August One of the Los Alamos officials, geophysicist John Baumgardner, said he personally believes the site is "almost certainly" the Ark, but he said he is more cautious about that controversial conclusion than Wyatt "The most interesting finding is the high manganese content," Baumgardner said. "We don't have an explanation of how that could have been formed in nature. I personally think it's almost certainly the site of the Ark.

But we want to keep studying these samples. "The issue is, are we dealing with a man-made structure? If so, it almost certainly is a boat And if a boat the only plausible explanation is that it is Noah's," Baumgardner said. But he added it will take another trip and possibly more samples to be more conclusive. Wyatt said he is planning one for next month, when he hopes to use subsurface radar to get a better picture of the whole site. Wyatt said the National Laboratory got interested in the project on officials' initial assumption that the explorer had come upon the remains of a missile or satellite.

Wyatt said further proof is offered by the dimensions of the site. The "boat" is 519 feet long, which is consistent with the specifications of the Ark reported in Genesis, he said. Preliminary carbon 14 tests place the age of the site at about 5,700 years, "plus or minus 200," he said. Wyatt believes the Ark was abandoned by Noah after the flood in 2454 B.C Wyatt's expedition will be the subject of a segment of the ABC-TV show 20-20, airing Oct 10, he said. He added that the Turkish government is interested in excavating the site next year.

The search has not been without its dangers. Wyatt said the August trip was marked by an attack on the explorers by a small gang of Iranian Shi-ite Moslems, shooting at them from about a quarter of a mile away. Religion JVVtvj Editor Madison explorer Ron Wyatt is planning another trip to Turkey to collect more evidence to support his contention that he has found Noah's Ark, but Wyatt himself needs no convincing. "This is it We've got the evidence," Wyatt, 52, said here yesterday. Over the last several months, Wyatt and a scientific crew have made trips to a site in the Ararat mountain range of eastern Turkey a site he says bears the sacred cargo of an archeo-logical find of a lifetime.

Though caked in mud, the outline of what he says is a boat tilting slightly upward is clearly defined in the terrain about halfway up a hill on Curdi Mountain, at an altitude of about 6,300 feet he said. The finding, he said, parallels the Genesis account that the Ark built by Noah to outlast God's wrathful flood came to rest "upon the mountains of Ararat" "It's a boat, and there's no other explanation for the boat being there," said Wyatt, who began searching for the Ark and other biblical artifacts years ago as a way to find out if the Bible is "historically reliable." "It's the only thing of its kind that's been photographed in the whole Ararat mountain range. The major timbers of the boat are still intact, including ribs, keel and two decks," he said. Further convincing him were the laboratory tests done on chunks of metal and soil brought back from the site, he said. At least one geophysicist tends to agree with Wyatt that this is the Ark.

Tests completed at Galbreath Laboratories in Knoxville and the National Laboratory in Los Alamos, N.M, confirmed the puzzling fact that metals like mangenese oxide were found in samples lifted from the site, Wyatt said. The metals had an ancient use as spikes and brackets, Wyatt believes. A metal detector has turned up positive readings in the shape of a boat, he said. Example 1986 OLDS CALAIS Stk. 063 Plus Taxes, License D.O.C.

Fees The 1986's are arriving by the Truckloads. Over 100 1986 Oldsmobiles Available. End of the year savings on brand new 1986 models. Don't settle for a one year old 1985 model when you can buy a 1986 Hippodrome Olds for less! State Moves Rape Victim, 3, From Hospital to Foster Home conclusive" and continuing, according to Kittrell and police. Metro Police Youth Guidance Divi sion investigators are awaiting the re Sale Ends Sept.

28th A 3-year-oid rape victim was removed from her guarded hospital room yesterday by the state Department of Human Services and sent to a foster home, officials said. DHS filed a petition in Juvenile Court for emergency custody of the child, who was discovered walking half-naked through a construction site last week after being raped near her trailer home along Murfreesboro Road. "This is what we always do when we feel like we need custody of the child," said DHS regional director Deborah Kittrell. A Juvenile Court hearing will be held "within the next three days" to determine if DHS had proper authority to take the actioa Kittrell said the child was removed from her hospital room because "we had to make sure the child was protected once she was released from the hospital." Meanwhile, the investigation into who might have raped the girl is "in- FREE FILL UP WITH EVERY PURCHASE! sults of tests on soil and hair taken freom the truck of Gary Smith, 23, the live-in boyfriend of Teresa Pegram, 24, the girl's mother. Since she was admitted to General Hospital after the rape last Wednesday, the girl has been under 24-hour guard by a Metro police officer.

It was learned that a private psychologist was the first person to speak to the child and spent the most time with her during her hospital stay when investigators were waiting to see if she could remember who raped her. In many past cases, young rape victims have been questioned by police detectives or DHS workers, using anatomically correct dolls. "Based on information we have right now, the only comfortable place for her was a foster home," Kittrell said, i MIMfW. Family" JJ.