SPORTS // College rolls in pair of midweek contests, p. 8
Vol. 101, Iss. 44 | Friday, April 6, 2012
The Flat Hat The Twice-Weekly Student Newspaper
Administration
of The College of William and Mary
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environment
Funding innovation
Local rivers deemed impaired
Seven proposals accepted bY chris mckenna
Flat hat chief staff writer
The College of William and Mary announced its acceptance of seven new faculty-led proposals that will hopefully save the College a bit of time — and money. The plans, to be implemented as early as next semester, are part of the Creative Adaptation Fund, which will set aside $200,000 annually over the next three years to fund projects that improve efficiency at the College. “This fund was designed to leverage and unleash our most valuable resource — the creative energies and ideas of our faculty,” Provost Michael R. Halleran said in a press release. “The seven approved projects are all very different but they have one key component in common — they improve the quality of our educational programs while making the university more efficient at the same time.” One proposal comes from a team of economics faculty, spearheaded by professor Robert Archibald, and advocates a complete overhaul of the fundamentals of economics courses to encourage greater individual participation in large classrooms of students. “We teach large sections and lots of people,” Archibald said. “The thing we’d like to do is make learning more interactive.” The solution: Online learning modules to better acquaint students with economics concepts on their own time. The modules will be largely activity-based, in which students work out important theories through trial-and-error before having them explained in detail. “We hope that these will improve the quality of learning in these large classes,” Archibald said. “What we’d like is something different.” One economics student was wary of the benefits of the change. “I think it really depends on how the school implements that type of educational See projects, page 3
caroline wren martin / THE FLAT HAT
Annual Water Quality Assessment and Impaired Waters Integrated Report considered the James River to be impaired due to a high level of polychlorinated biphenyls in its water column.
James and York Rivers classified as polluted due to PCBs and fecal coliform by sophie mason FLAT HAT ASSOC. variety editor
Despite elevated temperatures and with summer break just a little over month away, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality revealed March 26 that a dip in the James or York Rivers might compare to diving into waters from either an old electrical insulation plant or toilet water. According to the DEQ’s 2012 Water Quality Assessment and Impaired Waters Integrated Report, water in the James River was deemed impaired due to the levels of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, in its water column. Exposure to PCBs has been linked to acne-like eruptions and cancer. The York River received the
findings are fairly typical. “Impairment is not the exception, it’s the rule,” Chambers said. Chambers explained that PCBs are persistent, organic pollutants that tend to remain in aquatic environments because they do not break down rapidly. They are contaminants found in the electrical insulation industry and levels are amplified in the food chain as small animals on the bottom of the river eat the contaminants and larger animals eat those animals. “The timing of the cleaning of the PCBs is going to be long-term, and it’s probably only going to come about due to natural processes that lead to the burial of the PCBs in the bottom of the river,” Chambers said. While PCBs remain in the sediment
same ruling due to an overabundance of fecal coliform. “Of the [17,000 to 18,000] watersheds they tested, something like 70 percent are considered impaired, which means that it’s the worst possible categorization in terms of water quality, and that some action needs to be taken to clean them up,” associate professor of geology Gregory Hancock said. The Environmental Protection Agency Assessment categories extend from a level one, indicating that the water fully supports all designated uses, to a level five, which means the water is impaired and a total maximum daily limit plan may be required. According to Randolph Chambers, director of the Keck Environmental Lab, the local
national
for an indefinite period of time, the presence of fecal coliform is only a temporary problem in the watershed indicative of a chronic discharge somewhere in a septic system or of runoff coming from agricultural fields, according to Chambers. “If the source area from where the problem is coming from is identified and is fixed, then the river ought to clean itself out fairly quickly,” Chambers said. Lyndsey Funkhouser ’12 noted that an overabundance of nutrients has also become a major pollutant in local rivers, causing plant overgrowth that reduces oxygen levels, and kills everything else. See pollution, page 3
career
New regulations could doom Surry plant Sharing passwords Federal EPA regulations for new plants caps amount of carbon dioxide bY sarah kleinknecht Flat hat staff writer
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by grace thomas the Flat hat
When a Dendron city council hearing unanimously approved the construction of a new coal-fired power station, the hopes of residents and of College of William and Mary students — who have been fighting against the plant since its planning stages — seemed doomed. New federal Environmental Protection Act regulations, however, will send the power plant back to square one. Just when the power plant thought that all roadblocks had been removed and had scheduled to break ground on the plant’s construction this year, the EPA announced its Clean Air Act standard for carbon pollution for new power plants March 27. The regulations are expected to become law by the end of the year. “[Student Environmental Action Coalition members] are very happy for the citizens of Surry that this won’t be built in their backyard and we hope that the state of Virginia respects the EPA regulations to protect the public health, and that these new regulations stand, as part of
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Congressmen call for investigation
an output-based standard of 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt. However, these
Social security number, phone number and home address have long been expected information on a job application. Yet traditional expectations have received a shock from the rise of social media as Facebook passwords have become another blank applicants are asked to fill, challenging the distinction between private and public life. With graduation weeks away and job prospects pinched in the current economy, many seniors feel caught between a rock and a hard place. For some politicians on Capitol Hill, however, asking for social media passwords is a blatant breach of privacy, bringing the debate between social media privacy and public information to the fore. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo., proposed an amendment last week to the Federal Communications Commission Process Reform Act of 2012 that would prohibit employers from demanding social networking passwords. The Act would also allow the Federal Communication Commission to intervene. The amendment was voted down a day after its proposal, however. Password requests also disregards Facebook’s terms of use, which state “you will not share your password, let
See COAL, page 4
See passwords, page 4
Courtesy photo / JACLYN CARROLL
Members of the community and students protest the Surry coal plant at a Dendron city council meeting in March.
a new era for greenhouse gas standards,” SEAC member Grace Hansen ’12 said. These new performance standards demand that new fossil-fuel-fired power plants meet
Today’s Weather
Inside opinions
Inside VARIETY
The best years of our lives
Partly cloudy High 63, Low 41
How much truth is there in the widespread assumption that our four years at the College will be the high point of our lives? page 5
Increasing the options
Sadler Center Dining Hall focuses on improvements, adds meal options for students. page 6