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Happy Fourth of July! CHANCE OF STORMS, HIGH 91, LOW 79 / PAGE B12 ALL-GREATER HOUSTON BASEBALL / PAGES C8-9
SU N DAY, J U LY 4 , 2 0 1 0 ¬¬¬
CITY & STATE DISASTERS THEN AND NOW
HELPING HANDS
THROW OUT
VOICES PATRIOTISM
BP PLEA DEAL,
OF THE GULF IN PAINT VICTIMS SAY
This flag is best seen Recent events
Narco sub
from the air. PAGE B1 prove firm can’t
be trusted, say
RICK LISA LISA RICHARD JEROME LOREN SHANNON no rumor,
SPORTS
survivors of the
WIMBLEDON authorities
CASEY FALKENBERG GRAY JUSTICE SOLOMON STEFFY TOMPKINS
About this series Texas City blast
From South Padre Island to the Florida Keys, the
Chronicle columnists blanket the Gulf Coast to detail
the toll on lives and livelihoods from one of the worst
environmental disasters in our nation’s history. In today’s
CHAMP discover
In straight sets, Find in jungle
By TOM FOWLER
and LISE OLSEN
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Dave Leining had worked
installment, KEN HOFFMAN looks at what’s being done to Serena captures her of Ecuador called at BP’s Texas City refinery
save the brown pelican from the effects of the BP oil spill. fourth title. PAGE C1 a game-changer in for 36 years when a fatal
blast in 2005 took his hear-
the war on drugs ing, broke his ankles and left
GOOD LIFE
BEST
him trapped in the ruins of a
double-wide office trailer as
By DANE SCHILLER a ball of explosive fire passed
over his head.
It has long been the stuff At least he survived. Fif-
of drug-trafficking legend, teen others did not.
but federal authorities an- Now, the toll of
DINERS
nounced Saturday that they the dead in BP-re-
have helped seize the first lated accidents in-
cludes at least 14
submarine built by drug traf- more — 11 of those Exclusively
FoodTHE fickers to smuggle tons of lives snuffed out in your print
GOODLIFE
cocaine from South America in the April 20 edition
Deepwater Hori-
zon disaster and three others
star inspires in subsequent incidents at the
Texas City refinery.
a yummy road trip. Leining and various vic-
PAGE J1 Ocean, according to the Drug tims’ attorneys have asked
Enforcement Administration. the U.S. Department of Jus-
tice to revoke the terms of a
ZEST 100 feet long and equipped 2007 plea deal the company
reached as part of a crimi-
before its maiden voyage by nal prosecution of the deadly
Ecuadorian authorities armed Texas City accident. Ample
evidence that BP never fixed
SMILEY N. POOL : C H R O N I C L E
The discovery is seen by the refinery as promised —
authorities as a game-chang- including the three additional
CLEAN BILL OF HEALTH: David Lane, of Baton Rouge, La., cradles a er in terms of the challenge fatalities in other accidents —
pelican after its bath at the Fort Jackson Bird Rehabilitation Center. it poses not only to fighting provides proof the company
drugs but to national secu- can’t be trusted, they say.
In a vocabulary fueled by
Chapter Three “The submarine’s nauti- the anger of survivors, Leining
cal range, payload capacity, and others call BP a corporate
After all they do for man, and quantum leap in stealth
have raised the stakes
for the counter-drug
villain who views blue-collar
workers as “consumable” and
“disposable” commodities.
this is how we repay birds? forces and the national
security community
alike,” said DEA Andean
Regional Director Jay Berg-
They want someone, prefer-
ably a high-ranking executive,
to go to jail.
Leining was pulled from
The creatures that fuel ecology — even freedom — man. the wreckage of the Texas
City blast by Ralph Dean, who
get slow death by oil. A plucky few get a chance. camouflage-painted subma- had been operating a forklift
JIMMIE
rine could have traveled, but not far from the trailer. The
F
O RT JAC K S O N, 150 million years ago. plants with it is believed to be sophisti- explosion spewed fire and
L a . — Whether Relatively speaking, man their feet and cated enough to cover thou- showered debris over Dean’s
you believe the just got here, only 2.5 waste. They sands of miles — and cer- wife and killed his father-in-
Bible … on the million years ago. help trees Exclusively law and the 14 others working
VAUGHAN
fifth day of cre- Either way, birds were grow by eating in your print American coast. at the plant.
ation, God said, “The wa- here first. parasites. edition “There is a sense of ur- “It sounds harsh, but it is
ter shall teem with swarms And since the They pollinate gency for naval engineers literally true that BP is a seri-
of living creatures. Flying beginning, birds have been flowers and vegetables. and submariners to take a al killer — and the federal law
creatures shall fly over the an important part of our They control the rats and look at this thing and dissect enforcement agencies need to
land, on the face of the delicate ecology. They’ve other vermin. it and take it apart and figure be very active in bringing that
heavenly sky.” He created done their job. They’ve Seriously, birds helped conduct to a stop,” said David
man on the sixth day. kept up their end of the keep the world free in Perry, a Corpus Christi lawyer
Or whether you believe bargain. World War I and World The guitar police have seized this struc- who represents Dean. “That
science … paleontologists Birds eat insects during War II when radio signals virtuoso rocks it ture, but the people that would include prosecution of
estimate that birds took breeding season. Birds were too risky. Allied forces need to get on there are naval the parent company and pros-
flight on Earth about spread seeds of wetland Please see SPILL, Page A6 old school. ZEST Please see SUB, Page A21 Please see BP, Page A8
SPORTS INSIDE
EUROPEAN
SEMIFINALS Business . . D1 Horoscopes G6
Crossword . G7 Lottery . . . A2
TUESDAY: Uruguay Dear Abby . G2 Movies. . ZEST
vs. Netherlands Directory . . A2 Obituaries . B5
DOMINATION
1:30 p.m., ESPN, Univision Earthweek A25 Outlook . . . B8
Editorials. .B11 Sports . . . . C1
Hale . . . . . G1 TV . . . . . ZEST
WEDNESDAY: Spain
vs. Germany
1:30 p.m., ESPN, Univision
ONLINE: Photo gallery,
videos, blogs and more
SEBASTIAN WILLNOW : A P
PAGE C1 at chron.com/wc
Created on Adobe Document Server 2.0
Sunday, July 4, 2010 THE JUMP PAGE ¬¬¬ HOUSTON CHRONICLE A21
Conservatives press Steele to resign
GOP chairman draws more heat for him to go — quickly.”
Steele, whose term ends
Army Gen. Stanley McChrys-
tal as top commander.
for calling Afghan war a ‘lost cause’ in January, has not directly Referring to Obama, Steele
responded to the criticism, said, “If he’s such a student of
ministrations, wrote to Steele but he sent a statement to the history, has he not understood
By RICHARD A. SERRANO in an open letter. “So I ask voting members of the RNC that, you know, that’s the one
M c C L AT C H Y N E W S PA P E R S
you to consider, over this July that also was posted on the thing you don’t do, is engage
WA S H I N G T O N — Several 4 weekend, doing an act of committee’s website. in a land war in Afghanistan?
prominent conservatives on service for the country you “The stakes are too high Everyone who has tried, over
Saturday intensified pressure love: Resign as chairman of for us to accept anything but 1,000 years, has failed.”
on Republican National Com- the Republican Party.” success in Afghanistan,” he
mittee Chairman Michael S. Rep. Tom Cole of Okla- said in the statement. Harsh words from Rove
Steele to resign following his homa, a former chairman of Kristol, among others,
comments that the war in the National Republican Con- Turbulent tenure noted that the war began
Afghanistan was of President gressional Committee, said Steele, whose leadership under Obama’s predecessor,
Barack Obama’s choosing and Steele “should apologize and of the GOP committee re- George W. Bush, and that
has probably turned into “a resign.” He called the remarks peatedly has been marred by although some critics may
lost cause” for the U.S. made Thursday by Steele at a gaffes, was caught on video want the U.S. to withdraw,
“It is time for Chairman Connecticut fundraiser “to- footage that surfaced Friday “one of them shouldn’t be the
Steele to step down,” said Liz tally unacceptable.” on YouTube. His comments chairman of the Republican
Cheney, chairwoman of Keep In a statement to Politico. were taped the day before Party.”
America Safe and daughter com, Cole added: “He under- while he spoke to a Republi- Karl Rove, a former top
of former Vice President Dick cut American forces fight- can Party fundraising event political aide to Bush and a
Cheney. ing in the field, politicized in Connecticut. Fox News consultant, said the
“You are, I know, a pa- further a war that two presi- He called the nine-year Steele statement didn’t go far
triot,” Bill Kristol, editor of dents of different parties have conflict in Afghanistan “a war enough. “He’s going to have
the Weekly Standard and a deemed in the national inter- of Obama’s choosing” and de- to take the public stage and
top aide in the Ronald Reagan est and embarrassed the party scribed as “comical” the events take his licking there and say
and George H.W. Bush ad- he purports to lead. It is time surrounding the dismissal of he misspoke,” Rove said.
SUB: Find came before maiden voyage
CONTINUED FROM PAGE A1 somebody would find a used
engineers.” one on the market. We’ve
Bergman noted that traf- been using them since the
fickers have used speed boats, Civil War.”
sail boats, fishing boats and He noted that the former
specialized craft that float Navy P-3s that now are used
low in the water, but this is by U.S. Customs and Bor-
the first true submarine dis- der Protection to search for
covered. sea and airborne traffickers
“Now that the Loch Ness sneaking loads toward the
Monster has been found, the United States might have to
interdiction community is revert to their old submarine
going to retool their search hunting mission.
patterns and how they con- Finding the sub comes as
duct business,” he said. part of a long-term cat and
Back in 2000 in a Bo- mouse game in which authori-
gota, Colombia, warehouse DEA ties have combed jungles and
authorities thought they’d COVERT OPERATION: The sub was built in a clandestine dry dock flown over thousands of miles
found the first ever narco in Ecuador’s jungle along a waterway leading to the Pacific Ocean. of open ocean each week in
submarine, but it turned out an attempt to deny traffick-
to be an enclosed boat that ers easy access to their U.S.
floated low in the water, they can go in terms of at the University of Hous- markets.
rather than completely un- maritime,” Bergman said. ton Downtown, said the DEA As Bergman put it: “This
der the surface. “The traffickers have now very well could have found is the final frontier for the
exhausted every possibility.” the only real narco sub. maritime drug traffickers. We
The final frontier Among the questions is remained completely incredu-
The submarine seized in who could have designed Hard to hide lous until the last minute,” he
Ecuador was built in what such a sophisticated ma- He noted that it isn’t easy said. “Good cops never under-
was described as a clandes- chine, as well as piloted it. to keep a dry dock covert, let estimate their enemy or the
tine dry dock of industrial But the biggest issue alone all the people involved. ingenuity of the adversary, but
proportions and even had haunting federal agents is “It is feasible,” said Kar- seeing is believing and that is
housing for dozens of work- this: How many more might son, who noted that for years what this day is.”
ers. be out there? authorities have heard rumors
It marks what could be ar- “The DEA is very good,” of drug traffickers getting a dane.schiller@chron.com
gued as the final frontier for Bergman said, “but what are submarine. But most figured
traffickers who have squared the odds of us detecting the traffickers would most likely
off against law enforcement first one ever built before it buy a used one, not make their
on the land, in the air and on got underway? I’d say this is own.
the sea, and now look to go the first one we caught.” “I think everybody has
beneath the waves to reach Larry Karson, a retired been looking for it, it has
lucrative drug markets. Customs Service agent who been a matter of time,” he
“There is no place else is a criminal justice lecturer said. “There was a rumor
provid This pro
ed by gra
the H m is gene
ess C ro
orpora usly
tion.
