PRESS CLIPS 0 C.1 Ai' 10 718 WEST 5th ST AUSTIN TEXAS 78701 its Daily Texan Austin, Texas AUG 2 9 1979 Clements requests emergenc_ From Staff and Wire Reports As a blob of crude oil the size of Houston and a tropical depression threaten the Texas Gulf Coast with unprecedented disaster, Gov. Bill Clements Tuesday requested emergency federal aid from the Small Business Administration. The governor said he has asked SBA ad- ministrator Vernon Weaver to waive any rules and regulations because of the unique situation of the oil spill and to declare Cameron, Willacy, Kleberg, Kenedy, Nueces, Aransas and San Patricio counties as disaster areas. "MANY RESORT hotels and motels are being faced with such significant decreased cash flows that they may not be able to hold out until a routine economic injury disaster loan is processed," Clements said in a letter to Weaver. "Further, since the spill is continuing, the affected businesses may well need continuing assistance." Meanwhile, criticism of Mexico's handling of the crippled off-shore rig, Ixtoc I, continued to mount. "I think they (Mexicans) have a definite credibility problem with the scientists who have been out there," said Texas A&M University engineering professor Roy Hann, who visited the site June 29. AS AN EXAMPLE, Hann cited the Mexican claim that up to 60 percent of the spilled oil is be- ing burned off or otherwise contained at the site. However, aerial observations — some of which have been filmed and shown on American televi- sion — belie this contention. Burning oil emits billowing black clouds of smoke, he explained, while the flames of Ixtoc I have been clean, perhaps indicating natural gas, but not oil. Richard Golob, director of the Center for the Study of Short-Lived Phenomena in Cambridge, Mass., agrees. "In the first two months (since the June 3 blowout), they picked up no more than 5 percent of the spilled oil." NO EXPLANATION for this discrepancy has come from the Mexican government, Hann said, adding that Mexico's "attitude seems to be: 'You aTtAlas ssala ought to just take the press releases and trust us.' And we. don't." Asked whether he believes PEMEX, the Mex- ican national oil producer, is purposely mis- leading the outside world about the problems at the rig, Hann replied, "You betcha." The Mexican government, on the other hand, apparently is displeased with American scien- tists. Golob said the authorities no longer speak to him because they are annoyed by the descriptions of the blowout carried in the center's Oil Spill Intelligence Report newsletter. EXPOUNDING ON testimony he presented before the Texas House Environmental Affairs Committee Aug. 25, Hann said the world's oil- producing community extends aid "anytime a oil spill spill occurs anywhere in the world." He said the use of off-shore skimming booms has been offered by Lockheed, British Petroleum and Cyclenet cor- porations and the U.S. Coast Guard, but PEMEX declined in favor of its own less-efficient skimmers. HANN SAID the aid would not be free and described it as a clean-up-now, pay-later arrange- ment. In 1974 Chile reimbursed the United States for the services of a Coast Guard team which had been sent to the Straits of Magellan to fight an oil tanker spill, he said. "I guess they (Mexico) just weren't willing to spend the money," Hann said. "They believe this stuff would dissipate in the environment despite what everybody told them."