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(04/26/09 4:00am)
This school year saw its fair share of incidents that got students talking — and they didn't just happen on the basketball court. From the Teague Residence Hall shower peeper to the Kenan Stadium power outage campus stayed busy the whole year.Gerrard Hall firePolice investigated a Nov. 8 fire in Gerrard Hall and treated it as an arson case.The fire which set off alarms at 3:14 a.m. was partially extinguished by the building's newly installed sprinkler system. When firefighters arrived they put out flames on eight chairs that were still burning.The Chapel Hill Fire Department estimated repairs to cost about $50000.The building which in recent years has hosted guest speakers concerts and occasional receptions was unoccupied at the time the fire occurred. The Loreleis' concert scheduled for 8 p.m. in Gerrard Hall that night was relocated to Carroll Hall.Suspects were never named and arrests in the case have not been made.Shower peeperA sophomore living in Teague Residence Hall was arrested in connection with multiple peeping incidents.On Sept. 25 a woman living on the second floor of Teague was taking a shower late at night in her suite with the bathroom door unlocked. She heard the door open but no one answered when she inquired who was there.After looking up from shaving her legs she saw a cell phone in her face which she presumed was recording her.A second incident with similar circumstances was reported on Jan. 19.A woman living on the third floor of Teague was showering at about 2 a.m. that day when she heard the bathroom door open. Her roommate came out of their room saw the man standing in the doorway and recognized him.When he saw the roommate he left the suite. The roommate identified him as Roach and turned him in to police. Police arrested Gregory Roach20 of Raleigh on Feb. 27. Anti-abortion postersA UNC student group sponsored an anti-abortion demonstration in October that sparked heated responses.Carolina Students for Life was granted $5000 in student fees from Student Congress in September to bring the exhibit to campus.The exhibit which consisted of 18-foot panels with hard-to-stomach images of dead human fetuses dominated Polk Place for two days.The display towered over the central part of campus but many students responded negatively. Despite the response students remained civil with the demonstrators although many criticized Congress for funding the partisan display.Dorm floodingBoth Winston and McIver residence halls experienced flooding and minor damage from fire sprinklers this year.Students playing football in McIver broke a sprinkler head in late November causing flooding and water damage to the first and second floors. Two student rooms a community director's apartment and the second-floor hallways all received water damage.Plans were made to relocate students whose rooms were affected and for the student who threw the football to pay for the damages said Rick Bradley assistant director for housing.Water also flooded Winston Residence Hall March 20 after a student living on the fourth floor activated a sprinkler by removing an item that was hanging from the sprinkler head. The water caused damage and displaced students surrounding the fourth-floor room.Larry Hicks director of housing and residential education said the sprinklers emit 50 gallons of water a minute.Dorms contain asbestosSix UNC residence halls were discovered to have materials in their walls that contain asbestos — a small toxic fiber once used to insulate and fire-proof buildings. Inhaling high levels of asbestos can cause serious health problems.Even after a $22 million renovation that finished in 2007 Morrison Residence Hall remained one of the six dormitories containing this dangerous substance.Hinton James Avery Parker Morrison Ehringhaus and Craige contain this asbestos within their cinder block walls. Most were built in the 1960s.Rick Bradley assistant director for housing said that it would take extreme action for the asbestos to become airborne.Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.
(03/25/09 4:00am)
Next time you take a sip from the Old Well thank Philip Singer.Singer who directs UNC's Drinking Water Research Center and is also a professor in the Gillings School of Global Public Health has been working for 35 years to improve drinking water quality in Chapel Hill and across the nation.Singer's drinking water work covers lots of areas. But predominantly he focuses on minimizing exposure to substances called disinfection by-products. Here's why:In 1974 it was observed that chlorine which is used by utility companies to disinfect water reacts with naturally occurring organic matter like algae and twigs to form a number of disinfection by-products — or compounds resulting from this reaction.Scientists found these by-products also known as DBPs to be cancerous. Since then more DBPs continue to be discovered. For the past 35 years they have been the most pervasive issue in the field of drinking water research.Regulations from local agencies as well as federal agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency have been in place since 1979 to help lower DBP concentrations to keep consumers safe. Various methods of DBP reduction are done in different parts of the country but Singer says the South is particularly problematic.Chlorine reacts with natural materials and since the South is abundant in materials like these the water is too. This causes the water as soon as it goes through treatment and receives chlorine to aid in disinfection" to contain DBPs and endanger consumers.""It's an interesting balance" because on the one hand you have to disinfect the water but on the other hand you get disinfection by-products after cleaning the water that could be harmful" Singer said. It's a trade-off and a risk.""Singer's research" which has been going on since the DBP discovery in 1974 and has received about $11.5 million in funding eases this risk.There are five broad stages that water treatment plants use to purify water. In the first stage called coagulation dirt and other particles suspended in the water are removed. Singer's research confirms that coagulation effectively reduces DBP precursors like the natural materials.One of the main focuses of Singer's coagulation research which began in 1976 is the enhancement of the coagulation process to remove DBP precursors altogether. Thanks to Singer's research" the EPA has identified coagulation as one of the best available technologies for controlling DBPs and a necessary safeguard for clean drinking water.""Because we know that coagulation can lead to the removal of substantial amounts of these precursors" the big advantage is that now most utility companies apply chlorine after sedimentation and coagulation Singer said. And because there's less organic material in the water" less DBPs are formed.""This means that because coagulation helps rid our water of natural materials before the chlorine is applied to disinfect it"" the chance of disinfection by-products entering our water is significantly reduced.Singer says that coagulation's best feature is that it is relatively inexpensive — a necessary attribute in a country where water is significantly underpriced.""If anybody sits down and looks at their utility bills" they'll find that water is less than cable telephone Internet. And water is an essential part of life said Singer.Singer hopes to create more effective processes for removing organic material from water. He is now studying an in-depth process called anion exchange" another way to remove organic material. Anion exchange would prevent the organic material from coming into contact with chlorine, thus eliminating DBPs.Anion exchange would also help reduce amounts of the element bromide in water. When bromide, found naturally in water, comes into contact with chlorine, a more harmful disinfection by-product is created — one that is potentially more cancerous.Overall, Singer said, he wants to prevent people from coming into contact with DBPs without compromising disinfection.He has been successful.Over the course of 35 years" we have lowered exposure to disinfection by-products 50- to 100-fold" he said.But he's not quite done. Singer said that even after 35 years of making our drinking water clean, he plans to keep finding ways to make water safe for everyone.Research never ends.""Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.
(02/19/09 5:00am)
While there will be scantily-clad nurses vampires and superheroes on Franklin Street for Halloween this year out-of-town football fans will be few in number.Due to cooperative efforts by the Chapel Hill Police Department and the Department of Athletics UNC will not host a home football game on Saturday" Oct. 31. The police department held a series of meetings over the last few months as part of a multiyear campaign to reduce the Halloween crowd size in Chapel Hill. Athletic department officials attended at least one of these meetings where police requested that a game not be scheduled to cut down on the number of people in town.""They wanted us to do anything we could do to avoid having a home game on Saturday this year"" said Rick Steinbacher, an associate athletic director in charge of marketing and promotions. After talking with the police department, Athletic Director Dick Baddour and Senior Associate Athletic Director Larry Gallo made a request to the Atlantic Coast Conference that UNC not host a home game on Oct. 31. The request was honored.The ACC allows all of its 12 schools to make one scheduling request per year. In 2008, around 35,000 people flooded Franklin Street to celebrate Halloween. Kenan Stadium seats 60,000 people. Chapel Hill Police Chief Brian Curran said the Franklin Street crowd on Halloween would be enough to handle. Halloween's on a Saturday and I didn't want to have a 60"000-plus football crowd getting ready to join all the people that want to rush Franklin Street" Curran said. Curran said this was the only time the police department has made such a request, but he said he was grateful that University administrators had been so accommodating.This past year, Chapel Hill police took a number of measures to reduce the crowd size on Franklin Street, such as a midnight curfew, reduced parking and a $5 minimum bar fee.The changes were prompted by Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy's initiative to keep the Franklin Street party a local event.As a result of the effort, crowd sizes decreased from 80,000 people in 2007 to 35,000 last October.Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.
(01/15/09 5:00am)
A UNC research team has embarked on its second mission to help reduce underage debauchery.Led by researchers Rebecca Williams and Kurt Ribisl UNC students ages 18-20 will test the difficulty of ordering alcohol on the Web.Later this year the students under both academic and legal instruction" will test the 100 most popular sites for purchasing alcohol. Anywhere from two to 10 students are expected to participate. The same researchers leading the study helped reduce online cigarette sales to minors in the past few years.""I think we're going to find that this study will help us translate the lessons we learned from cigarette sales online to alcohol sales online"" said Williams, a project director at the UNC Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention.The number of minors buying alcohol from online sources is a subject of debate among researchers. But some sites only require a single click of a mouse to verify that the buyer is 21, allowing minors easy access to liquor, beer or wine. In the study, student participants will be granted immunity from prosecution before they order alcohol from Web sites to see how well the site monitors the buyers' ages.New laws could result from the study, as they did after the same UNC researchers exposed the availability of online cigarette sales to minors. But for now, many online vendors including North Carolina wineries ask shoppers to provide a birth date, and then require shipment companies to have an adult sign for any shipment. But some sites, such as Internet Wine & Spirits, only provide a highlighted warning box, informing prospective buyers that they must be 21. Many UNC students said they were unaware that minors buy alcohol online. I've not even heard of such activities"" said Ataharul Mannan, a first-year public health major. But numbers on exactly how many minors order from Web-based alcohol vendors are difficult to obtain, making it hard for law enforcement regulators to get a firm grip on this illegal practice. Lt. Kevin Gunter, spokesman for the Chapel Hill Police Department, emphasized a lack of awareness by the police department. I'm not sure how we would be made aware of this occurring" Gunter said.To my knowledge this is not a problem we've run into before. This is not a problem I've heard of" at least locally.""Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.