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NEXT@CNN
Motorcyclists Tribute Vietnam War POWs, Good Day For Some at Indy 500
Aired May 25, 2003 - 17:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN NEWS ANCHOR: Motorcyclists from around the country are in Washington to pay tribute to those missing in action and POWs from the Vietnam War. Organizers say they are also rallying for veterans health care.
It was a good day for the Roger Penske team at the Indy 500. Penske drivers swept the top two spots. Gil de Ferran beat two-time defending champ Helio Castro-Neves by three-tenths of a second.
More headlines at the bottom of the hour.
NEXT@CNN begins right now.
WHITFIELD: Well, welcome to NEXT@CNN for this Sunday, May 25. I'm Fredricka Whitfield.
Coming up this hour, the horrific aftermath of the earthquake in Algeria. We'll talk with a researcher who's working on a way to forecast earth tremors and perhaps reduce future death tolls.
New worries about mad cow this week. Could the disease be linked to an ailment in wild deer?
And should we spend millions shoring up eroding beaches when Mother Nature often comes out the winner anyway. We'll hear a debate on whether it's wise to stem the tide.
But, first at this hour, the death toll from the earthquake in Algeria has exceeded 2,000 now, and hundreds more are still missing. Wednesday's 6.8-magnitude earthquake in Algeria was the country's worst in years.
CNN'S Rym Brahimi is in Boudouaou, and she joins us now on the phone with the latest.
RYM BRAHIMI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fredericka, I'm in the town of Boudouaou. And that's about 30 kilometers east of the Algerian capital. Now, the site that I'm at, people have been digging relentlessly for the past four days because they found a few survivors in a six-story building that collapsed here.
But most of all, there's a little girl called Sabrina, She's 11 years old, and they've been hearing her voice, say residents, and they've been desperately trying to find her. Now, we've been just looking at what they've been looking. They've been trying to make an opening inside the concrete rubble to try and access that -- what is underneath the building and try and see if they can find her. Residents say they heard her as far back as yesterday morning.
WHITFIELD: Well, it sounds like we've lost that transmission from Rym Brahimi out of Algeria. If and when we're able to restore that, we'll try to resume that report from Rym.
Well, a great deal is known about where earthquakes are likely to happen, but forecasting when they occur is still a developing science. Researchers at NASA's jet propulsion lab are creating computer models that may some day lead to an earthquake prediction system.
Joining us now is Dr. Andrea Donnellan from JPL. Thanks for being with us at this hour.
ANDREA DONNELLAN, NASA'S JET PROPULSION LAB: Hi.
WHITFIELD: Well, first of all, what can you tell us about how you're able to detect exactly where these just might take place?
DONNELLAN: Well, what we're looking at is the strain between earthquakes. We don't actually measure the shaking part. Other seismologists do that. We measure the strain buildup before earthquakes and study how earthquake faults interact with each other. We use space-based techniques to do that.
WHITFIELD: And what is this now about the Quake SIM project which perhaps might help us all to be able to learn a little bit more about the safe or unsafe areas?
DONNELLAN: What we do in Quake SIM is, essentially, speed up time in the computer. So, we model earthquakes inside the computer, and we can study them for thousands to hundreds of thousands of years and see how earthquake faults interact. We're also in the last decade just now measuring how earthquake deformation happens, how plate tectonic stress builds up. And since we can see that, we can model that.
This is an animation of the North Ridge earthquake that occurs. We're flying over the San Fernando Valley. That's the earthquake itself. Each fringe is just like a contour map, so you can count those up and see that the mountains grew about 15 inches in the earthquake.
What's happening now is the mountains actually kept growing, and we measured that for two years following the earthquake. They grew another three inches, but they will continue to grow for 500 more years and that's what's occurring here in this simulation.
WHITFIELD: And when you look at the entire big picture, though, it is very difficult in which to detect when, in fact, it is nearly impossible to know when an earthquake is going to take place, unlike you've got hurricane forecasts etcetera, weather forecasts. At what point might we be able to rely on such technology to help us?
DONNELLAN: Well, what we hope to do is refine the forecast maps down to maybe five-year-type time sales, instead of 50-year-type time scales. That's very useful for retrofitting buildings better, making sure that they won't fall down, and that we've done it in the right area. We also hope to do it in a much more refined zone of just a few miles -- instead of hundreds of miles.
WHITFIELD: And would there ever be something like sirens like we use for tornados?
DONNELLAN: Well, right now, there may be through early warning systems. So, if San Andreas fault were to break, for example, it would take about two minutes to rupture. So when it starts, we could set off an alarm. We don't yet know how to predict earthquakes in the next day or next month.
WHITFIELD: Most people typically think places like California are likely to be, you know, the places in the U.S. that will have a significant number of earthquakes. But even more recently, we saw that places like St. Louis, Missouri, at least right outside there seemed to be on a fault line. Is that the explanation as to why we were seeing some recent tremor activity out of the St. Louis area?
DONNELLAN: Yes, there are old fault lines and those do break in earthquakes. And what we can do with these space-based techniques is get a global view of what's going on and where strain is building up. So, there's like a big piece of silly putty, you can stretch it, pull it hard, and it breaks. And we can see that strain building up with these space-based techniques. This is an animation of some of the Quake SIM results showing faults interacting in southern California. You can see the coastline and the offshore islands. The big area is the San Andreas fault, that line that you see.
Those are earthquakes popping off. This is a thousand-year simulation. And each butterfly shows an earthquake and, again, shows this displacement in a contour map-type style. What we can see matches what we observe in the real world. We see small earthquakes clustering in time and sometimes very, very big earthquakes.
WHITFIELD: Dr. Andrea Donnellan from JPL, thanks very much for joining us.
DONNELLAN: You're welcome.
Coming up on NEXT@CNN, some say it's like trying to fool Mother Nature. Seaside communities getting sand dumped on beaches that ocean waves are eroding. A debate on that issue later on NEXT@CNN.
And coming up, Gary Tuchman from Cherry Point, North Carolina.
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fredericka, five minutes ago five Harrier jets landed here at this air base. And right now, as we speak, the family members and friends of those five pilots who are home from nine months overseas are awaiting their arrival, which will happen any minute. We'll have the story when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: Well, welcome back to NEXT@CNN. Right now we're going to take you to Cherry Point, North Carolina, the Marine Corps air station there where some navy families are getting a gift from above. Five Harrier jets from the amphibious ship Nassau also arriving home today.
CNN's Gary Tuchman is there - Gary.
TUCHMAN: Well, Fredricka, as we speak to you, the Marine Harrier jets, which landed here at Cherry Point about five minutes ago are taxing to their families and friends who have now been waiting here for about an hour. These men who are flying these planes are members of the 24th Marine Expeditionary units, they have been away for nine months. Usually, their trips are six months. They ended up going to Kosovo. They spent time in Kenya. Then, at the six-month point, when normally they would be coming home, they ended up being sent to Iraq. And the five pilots who have just arrived participated in between 20 and 40 sorties each during the course of the war.
Now, you can see over here, the Harrier jets that sit here on the taxiway here at the Cherry Point Marine Corps air station. The planes that are coming in, and you hear the noise right now, right behind it. And you can see right now, it's coming around the corner, the first of these Harrier jets. The pilots aboard, Captain Jeff Bonner (ph), Captain Andy Mac (ph), Captain Troy Pierson, Major Brian Zacharel (ph) and Major Jim Wellins (ph).
We spent a lot of time during the war at an air base near the border of Iraq with the Air Force. We're used to all this noise that we're hearing right now. So it may be a little hard for you to hear me. But this is a very exciting time for these family members who have been waiting for such a long time. And as these planes come in, we are told that the pilots are going to actually have to go through customs, believe it or not, after being at the war and being away for the better part of a year. They're going to have to talk to officials here at this base before they get a chance to talk to their families.
But you can see right now, the Marine support people standing there ready to wave these Harrier jets in as they come in. This is the beginning of a very big Memorial Day weekend here in North Carolina. Tomorrow, we're talking about five pilots today. Tomorrow, approximately 2,300 Marines with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit will all be coming in on the beach. They will be taking a hovercraft from amphibious assault ships and landing on the beach at Camp Lejeune, and they will be greeted by thousands and thousands of relatives.
But you can see right now the plane coming in. And the pilot aboard, and it's hard for us to know who it is. But we're going to give you a look in a second after this plane gets here. Do we know which pilot this is?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have no idea which one he's in.
TUCHMAN: We're talking with one of the wives right now. And it's not her husband. Let's turn around. We're going to turn around and give you a look now at all the relatives who are waiting for their loved ones to come off these airplanes. As you can see right here, the woman you are looking at. That's not her husband. But they're waiting here also with the rest of the people who are here at the Cherry Point Marine Corps air station.
I want to ask you a quick question. This is Kara Bonner (ph). Her husband is Captain Jeff Bonner. He is in one of the five planes coming -- not the first one. How are you feeling right now?
KARA BONNER, WIFE OF CAPTAIN JEFF BONNER: I just can't wait to see him and hug him. It's overwhelming. It's been a long haul.
TUCHMAN: You're holding the hand right now of your mother-in- law.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, mother.
TUCHMAN: Oh, you're the mother. OK. The mother of the captain.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right. Right.
TUCHMAN: The mother of the captain, the mother-in-law of Kara.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Exactly.
TUCHMAN: How are you feeling right now?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, I haven't been this excited since the day he was born.
TUCHMAN: You went through a lot. He's been gone for nine months, flying over Iraq, very dangerous mission. How scared were you during the war?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Very, very. I was so proud but so scared. I really was.
TUCHMAN: This guy behind you -- do you know him?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, he's been through it too.
TUCHMAN: Your husband, the father. How are you feeling?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Very well. Very well.
TUCHMAN: Are you a little proud at this point?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Very much so. It's a nice day.
TUCHMAN: We're going to go back now if we can and take a look at the pilot right now inside his cockpit as he gets ready to get off, and as four more Harrier jets start pulling in. You can see the second one coming right behind it. It's hard for us at our vantage point to see, but they are being waved in by the Marine support people. That's two of the five as the pilots come home from the Persian Gulf after nine months.
Back to you.
WHITFIELD: Gary, you guys need some binoculars because usually the pilots names are written right there on the planes. And that would, I guess, help a lot of those family members who are out there waiting. Now you said that it may take a bit of time for these pilots to go through customers before they actually get to run to the arms of their awaiting family members. Any ides how long that might take?
TUCHMAN: Well, we don't know, Fredricka, but maybe you can do me a favor. Can you read the name? I'm going to have my cameraman zoom in. Can you zoom into the name right under him?
Yes, that would be a great idea.
TUCHMAN: And can you tell me the name and then we will find his relatives here.
WHITFIELD: OK, I'm seeing Zacharel, B.J., Major B.J. Zacharel.
TUCHMAN: OK. Zacharel's family. Major Zacharel's family.
WHITFIELD: All right.
TUCHMAN: We're going to go find them while we're talking to you.
WHITFIELD: OK.
TUCHMAN: Let me find -- hold on. If you could wait one second, Fredricka. Do you see your husband right now? Do you see his plane? The second one? OK, well, we have with us right now - we have Jennifer Mac (ph). Her husband is Captain Andy Mac (ph) who's on the second plane that just pulled in. And with her beautiful little daughter, Nathalie (ph). How are you feeling right now?
JENNIFER MAC, WIFE OF ANDY MAC: Pretty excited.
TUCHMAN: How does your husband look? It's hard for us to tell right now. Why don't we go to the second plane, Leon (ph) if we can, because that's her husband in the second plane right there. How does he look to you right now?
MAC: I can't really see him very well from here.
TUCHMAN: It's very loud for your little girl right now, but it's amazing. She's only 17 months old, you told me. She is not crying. She just knows her daddy's home.
MAC: I think she's excited.
TUCHMAN: What's the first thing you're going to say to your husband when he gets off that plane and walks over to you?
MAC: I love you.
TUCHMAN: Do you want to wave to him? He'll probably see you. OK.
MAC: We'll let you get a chance to wave at him. As you can see, the planes are lining up in formation. And as you said, Fredricka, they'll talk to customs. And then they will have the joyful reunions that these family members have waited for so long. Back to you.
WHITFIELD: Wow, great job, Gary. Thanks very much. I know the family members just on pins and needles, can't wait to finally get into the arms of their loved ones who are on board those Harrier jets as they make their way on the tarmac part, and then go through customs as Gary was explaining. Thanks a lot.
WHITFIELD: Well, straight ahead on NEXT@CNN, political climate change at the White House? Possible reasons behind Christine Todd Whitman's departure from the EPA as NEXT@CNN continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: This week, EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman announced her departure after 2 1/2 years on the job. It has sparked a lot of discussion about who might take her place, and about where environmental protection is headed in the Bush administration.
Joining us live in the New York bureau is Dan Fagin.
DAN FAGIN, "NEWSDAY": Hi.
WHITFIELD: Oh, sorry about that, Dan, I'm going to pick up this conversation in a moment, but first want to go back to Cherry Point, North Carolina, where our Gary Tuchman is. So, Dan, if you could just hold tight, real quick, some reunions are taking place there -- Gary.
TUCHMAN: Fredricka, the reunions are happening as we speak. Do you remember the woman we were just talking to that was Jennifer Mac with her little daughter. She is now being reunited with her husband, Captain Andy Mac, right now. And you can see, this is such a touching moment. This has been wives and mothers and fathers and in-laws and friends who have been without their loved ones who have flying for The United States for the last nine months. That's how long they've been gone. And now you can see right now Captain Andy -- Chili is his call sign. That's the name he uses when he flies -- shaking hands.
And you can see the other reunions taking place here. Five pilots just getting off their Marine Harrier jets and meeting with their loved ones after nine months -- Kosovo and Kenya and other parts of Africa. And then just at the six-month point when they were supposed to come back to the United States, informed that they had to go to war, they flew their Harrier planes to the USS Nassau, the USS Austin, the USS Tortuga -- three amphibious assault ships. That was their base during the war, flew their Harrier jets on sorties over Iraq, and now they're back home with their families.
And in the case of this woman we were just telling you about, holding that little baby right there, that baby is 17 months old, now a toddler. But as the father who has been away for nine months, that's more than half this little girl's life. The mother told me the little girl started walking when she was 11 months old. So he's never seen his daughter walk at first. And he still hasn't because she is being held right now, but he certainly will very soon.
Back to you, Fredricka. WHITFIELD: But it looks like he is even looking at his own child in amazement there. So much has happened in the nine months that he's been away. You know, this is such a unique reunion taking place. It is so unlike the reunions we see on the docks of the ships pulling up, particularly because this is a much more intimate setting here at Cherry Point, North Carolina. Were only a select few, only the immediate family members allowed to be there at Cherry Point to greet these men who are coming back on these Harrier jets?
TUCHMAN: Fredricka, they've been permitted to bring anyone they want, the family members, but because it's been nine months since their loved ones have been away, they've wanted to keep it relatively small so they could get some more time with their husbands and with their sons and with their fathers. So that's why it's relatively small. There are no conditions put on it, but this is the second pilot homecoming we've covered.
A couple of weeks ago we were in Boise, Idaho, for Air Force pilots who came back. And it was the same kind of thing. It is a lot smaller than some of the other reunions we've seen, but the joyousness you see is contagious here. You can just see a lot of happiness. People have been waiting for a long time. And now they're experiencing exactly and precisely what they've been waiting for so long. I just want to show you one more picture over here, a picture of a husband and his son, a son he's seeing for the first time in nine months. It's nice to see.
WHITFIELD: Oh, that is beautiful. OK, and, of course, a very big reunion expected to take place tomorrow with the amphibious unit aboard the USS Nassau then pulling in to North Carolina Camp Lejeune area, those parts there, and offloading a number of U.S. Marines who can't wait to get home.
Gary Tuchman, thanks very much for joining us from Cherry Point.
As we said earlier this week, EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman stepped down, and now a whole lot of analysis is taking place as to why she stepped down. The job that she's done when she was in office and the job that has yet to be complete.
From our New York bureau as I was introducing a moment ago, Dan Fagin. He is the environment writer for "Newsday." And Dan, Whitman really did consider herself sort of the Republican environmentalist. But now there's been an awful lot of kind of Monday night quarterbacking taking place now that she's stepped down. What do you suppose took place here?
FAGIN: Well, I think that many people who have watched this administration in action and watched Christie Whitman in action, the mystery is not that she left but she didn't leave much earlier, or even that she took the job in the first place. She was always really quite a misfit for this administration, and she showed that over and over. She was not good at all at communicating the administration's message to the public and certainly to the environmental groups. And she was even worse at bringing the EPA bureaucracy, the EPA environmental policy makers' message to this administration, because she saw herself ignored, or overruled or undercut over and over.
WHITFIELD: And that's interesting you say that because leading into it, of course, while she was New Jersey governor, she sued the EPA. And she was very much considering herself to be an environmentalist, and then only to end up becoming the head of the EPA. And then, of course, there was a lot of criticism over relaxed regulations. Let's hear what she had to say last Wednesday here on CNN just as she was addressing those, just after announcing her resignation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN, EPA ADMINISTRATOR: I'm not leaving because of clashes with the administration, in fact, I haven't had any. I report to the president, and he has always asked me to give him my best unadulterated advice. I've always done that, and we have been on the same page. I was never, as a governor, supportive of Kyoto Protocol because it didn't do what everyone needs to get done as far as climate change is concerned. So I'm leaving now because it's the appropriate time to do it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: Well, Dan, do you agree with that? She says the appropriate time. Do you suppose for personal reasons or perhaps she was out of step with the Bush administration?
FAGIN: I'm sure that it was difficult for her personally, but I think the commuter marriage perhaps would have been less stressful for her if everyday she didn't see herself being undermined and overruled. I mean if Christie Whitman and the White House were on the same page, I don't think I've ever seen a book large enough to contain a page that big. Over and over, there were many, many instances over the last two, two and a half years, where she would take a few steps out onto a limb, and the White House would saw that limb out from under her. It happened over and over.
WHITFIELD: And as the EPA head, everyone expects it's tough to make friends, real easy to make enemies. It's hard to please everybody. But if you want to look at her two and a half years as the head of the EPA, what might you say stands out as her greatest accomplishments?
FAGIN: Well, I think one thing that Christie Whitman did do was that she was able, in a few limited circumstances, to follow through and implement, finalize some important initiatives that started under the previous administration, under the Clinton administration. The initiatives regarding tougher standards for diesel engines, for example, and a few other -- there were a few other examples too. In general, though, I would say her legacy is of someone who really was not much of a factor on the policy side where sort of over and over, she saw herself more as a figurehead than a policymaker.
WHITFIELD: Do you think her stepping down -- air pollution or perhaps even global warming will all be issues in the 2004 election? FAGIN: Well, that's a really good question, Fredricka. And I think it really depends on what kind of a person he picks next. The president picks next as EPA administrator. He has a pretty interesting choice really when you think about it. He can find somebody like Christie Whitman, someone who is a moderate, someone who is at least tolerated by the EPA bureaucracy and by environmentalists, someone who would not sort of create confirmation fight led by folks like Joe Lieberman or John Kerry. Or he could go the other way and find somebody who was actually compatible with this administration's agenda. And, after all, this is a president who campaigned on the idea that environmental regulation has gone too far, and that it's important to recast environmental rules. I don't think he's going to do that, Fredricka. I think he's going to figure that he can have his cake and eat it too and then find another moderate.
WHITFIELD: All right, Dan Fagin of "Newsday" magazine. Thanks very much. Environmental writer. Thanks for joining us. And thanks for hanging with us while we had those new pictures coming in from North Carolina. Appreciate it.
FAGIN: No problem, Fredricka. Thank you.
WHITFIELD: Well, lots more to come in the second half of NEXT@CNN. If your favorite beach were washing away, would you want your community to spend millions trying to put it back, or at least the federal government spending those millions? A debate over it tends to stem the tide. That and more coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: Here are the top stories at this hour. Israel's cabinet today voted to approve the U.S.-backed road map to piece. It marks the first time an Israeli government has formally accepted the principle of a Palestinian state. The vote was 12-7 with four abstentions.
Residents of a poor Baghdad neighborhood say a surface-to-air missile left over from Saddam Hussein's regime flipped off a trailer and blew up today killing three people. Iraqi workers were reportedly removing four unexploded missiles when it happened.
"Time" magazine quotes sources as saying Saddam Hussein and his son Qusay have been hiding out near Baghdad. But elder son Uday is not with them. The sources say Uday Hussein is laying low in a separate location after a falling out with his father.
A State Department official tells CNN the White House is considering efforts to destabilize the government of Iran. The source says a meeting on the matter is set for Tuesday. The Bush administration has accused Iran of harboring al-Qaeda terrorists.
More news at the top of the house. NEXT@CNN continues right now.
WHITFIELD: A Memorial Day tradition for many is a trip to the beach. Right? Well, what many people don't know is that many of our beaches are slip-sliding away due to erosion. Each year, millions of federal tax dollars are spent on beach renourishment.
Joining us to debate whether that is good use of your money, Ken Smith, president of the Coastal Advocate, and Orrin Pilkey professor of earth sciences at Duke University. Good to see both of you.
ORRIN PILKEY, DUKE UNIVERSITY: Good to be here.
KEN SMITH, THE COASTAL ADVOCATE: Thank you.
WHITFIELD: Ken, let me begin with you. At least for the year 2003, 110 million federal dollars is allocated for beach renourishment, and much of that money is going to beaches that are renourished time in and time out after just about every hurricane season. You've got a problem with that?
SMITH: Well, I have a problem with the truth of that. With the larger federal projects, there is a renourishment schedule, which generally could be anywhere from three to six years. They may take a hit during a hurricane season, but that is a partnership between the federal government, the states, and the locals where they're making a commitment to maintain that beach for the public that enjoys them so much.
WHITFIELD: But isn't there considerable criticism that there are certain beaches that seem to get a good amount of that funding almost every time there's a hurricane that seems to strike that area, particularly and because, in fact, miles and miles of beaches each year seem to be eroding away just naturally?
SMITH: Well, let me say this, Fredricka, if your road gets potholes in it, you don't abandon the road, you fix the potholes. I look on beaches as infrastructure, nice romantic infrastructure, but infrastructure, nonetheless. They support an industry that supplies billions upon billions of tax dollars and enjoyment for hundreds of millions of Americans. OK?
WHITFIELD: So you see this as money well spent then?
SMITH: Oh, my goodness, yes.
WHITFIELD: All right, Orrin, let me bring you into this, because you don't necessarily see that this is always money well spent. Why?
PILKEY: I think that's quite true. The main problem is that this is really a program to protect property, not to protect beaches. Beaches don't have a problem with shoreline erosion. There is only a problem when you build buildings next to the beach. And these buildings are big money makers for everybody. Why should we, the taxpayer, pay for these beaches -- for these beaches which are being put there to protect these houses that cause the problem to begin with.
WHITFIELD: So, Orrin, do you see a place for beach renourishment at all?
PILKEY: Oh, sure, for some of our huge communities like Atlantic City and maybe Miami Beach. But beyond that, this is a program that's going to get out of hand economically before long. As Ken said, they last three to six years. And we're dealing with a $3 to $10 million per mile of beach. Now, you multiply that times the entire shoreline and you're in trouble financially. But more important, I think, is the fact that these beaches up and down, especially in the southeast, when you put in a nourished beach, the development density suddenly jumps up. So you're basically putting more and more people into danger because you're building these nourished beaches.
WHITFIELD: So, Ken, clearly, you disagree with this. Is it because of the selection of which beaches are deserving of renourishment?
SMITH: Fredricka, God bless him. That's what Orrin does all the time. I didn't say that the beaches are gone in three to six years. I said that they are renourished in three to six years. But he'll take a proposition or a preposition like that and make it look like we all ought to get going right now. And you know, I listen to the people in the engineering community, the American Shore and Beach Preservation Association, and good professional groups of scientists and engineers who know what they're talking about.
WHITFIELD: Well, Ken, let me ask you this -- if it's true then that there are some statistics that allege that replaced beaches wash away ten times faster than others.
SMITH: No, that is -- no.
WHITFIELD: And that criticism of restoring those beaches not only is a detriment to the coastline, but also a detriment to the wildlife.
SMITH: Fredricka, that's another hoodwink by Orrin.
PILKEY: That's not true. That's not true.
SMITH: What happens is when the corps does a large project, they put advance fill out, which is a large volume of fill out in front of the project. It is designed to fall into the ocean very quickly.
WHITFIELD: Well, Orrin, let me get to you respond to that.
SMITH: Orrin knows that, too.
PILKEY: No I don't know agree.
SMITH: And so you can't say it's a failure.
PILKEY: I think it's quite true that the erosion rate of -- I know it's true, the erosion rate of a nourished beach is much faster than the natural beach.
SMITH: This is why we don't listen to him.
PILKEY: I'd like to back up just slightly and say that I think what we're seeing here is the first inklings of the greenhouse effect. Much of this erosion is caused by sea level rise, which is part of the greenhouse effect. And we are just reacting to the loudest, whoever hollers the loudest as far as pumping out sand. And we're trying to keep the status quo. We're reacting -- we're trying to engineer our way out of the greenhouse effect. And it ain't going to work.
WHITFIELD: Well, what's the happy medium then, if it's your contention that, indeed, when you renourish these beaches they only, much more quickly, Orrin, erode away. And Ken you see it the opposite, that there are properties at risk. How in the world do you reach a happy medium? How do you select the beaches if you're going to have a renourishment program. And, obviously, property owners are going to be the benefactors.
SMITH: Put it this way, Fredricka, Orrin wants to roll the dice. And I'm determined not to let him do it. I am determined to do the programs to make sure that the sand stays on the beaches, and that we have viable shore protection programs to keep our coastal tourism program running and keep millions of Americans happy every year when they come down to the shore. I'm not willing to take a chance on.
PILKEY: Roll the dice, absolutely not. What I'm arguing, we need to plan, we need to look at this as a long-term function of sea level rise, and stop reacting to loud people who are good politicians or something like that. Some places maybe we should nourish, some places we shouldn't.
WHITFIELD: Well, since it's a matter of deciding, what about those that are most densely populated then such as the New Jersey Shore? You mentioned South Florida, Miami, being another one of those locations. Why should densely populated areas be greater benefactors than any other? Why should they take priority?
SMITH: Not necessarily densely populated, but densely used beaches like Rockaway Beach, Coney Island, something like that. These are beaches with a million people in a day. They should be nourished no matter how much it costs and no matter how long it takes. No question about that. But it's a different story along much of the east coast where we have small recreational communities which are getting more and more dense and, in significant part, because of the nourishment project.
PILKEY: The sea level rise right now is four millimeters per year average. I mean, it's not even worth ...
WHITFIELD: Ken, do you see some of the more exclusive private beaches should, you know, get as much attention as those that are densely populated, that you really cannot selectively choose which beaches are more important than the others to restore?
SMITH: You can't systematically because when you're going to nourish a reach of coast, then every part of that beach is integral to the success and durability of the project. However, you can ensure public access. And I'm fully behind public access to our beaches if the taxpayers have to pay for them, they should be able to get to them.
WHITFIELD: All right, Ken Smith. And Orrin Pilkey, you get the last word, real quick, ten seconds or less.
PILKEY: Public access. If Ken goes right now to Sea Bright, New Jersey, and stands on top of the sea wall, he can see the skyscrapers of Manhattan right there. If he turns around, he'll see three or four dozen people on this massive beach that cost $200 million for 21 miles. Public access is ...
(CROSS TALK)
WHITFIELD: Orrin Pilkey, Ken Smith, thanks very much for joining us.
SMITH: Thank you.
PILKEY: Thank you, Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: We didn't expect we would resolve this right now but we wanted to give it a shot. Thanks very much gentlemen.
Well, coming up next on NEXT@CNN, as Canadian officials look for more evidence of mad cow disease, some are questioning whether the ailment could have come from animals in the wild. That and more when NEXT@CNN returns.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: Canadian health officials are still trying to confirm the birthplace of the country's single case of mad cow disease. Seventeen farms are now under quarantine. One area they're focusing on is western Saskatchewan where two farms are under quarantine.
Joining us now with the latest is Mark Stevenson, CTV environment correspondent. Hi, Mark.
MARK STEVENSON, CTV: Hi. That's right. As it turns out, that's the same region where deer and elk have been dying of a similar disease. It's called chronic wasting disease and it's leading to questions about whether the two diseases are related.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
STEVENSON (voice-over): In Saskatchewan, they've never seen a case of BSE or mad cow, but they've seen plenty of this, hundreds of farmed elk and a dozen wild deer with chronic wasting disease. Like mad cow, it's a deadly brain wasting disease but it attacks deer and elk. Since 1996, federal health officials have destroyed more than 8,000 animals. At least three elk farms are still under quarantine all in the same region where authorities are now investigating the origins of Alberta's mad cow.
Brian Oestreicher owns one of the elk farms devastated by chronic wasting disease. He lost his entire herd. Since the outbreak, cattle have also been banned from his farm, even though federal officials say chronic wasting disease poses no risk to cattle. But if that's the case, says Oestreicher, why are they still banning cattle from his land? BRIAN OESTREICHER, ELK FARMER: How can that be? We should be allowed to go and raise cattle and bison on our land that has been free from elk for two years coming on three years now.
STEVENSON (on camera): All of this raises the question, could Alberta's mad cow be connected to chronic wasting disease? In other words, could the disease have jumped to deer and elk?
(voice-over): Scientists have said all along that chronic wasting disease is unlikely to jump species but it's happened with similar diseases. It happened with the outbreak of mad cow in Britain. It jumped to cattle after they were fed sheep meal made from sheep infected with scrapie, a disease very similar to mad cow and chronic wasting disease. Ultimately, it jumped to people who ate the infected beef in the form of variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease. These diseases have one thing in common -- the infectious agent is a mutant form of a protein called a prion.
DOUG STORY, UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY: You can have prion jump species. So going from sheep to cows, from cows to humans, until there's the theoretical possibility that that can occur.
STEVENSON: And there's some experimental evidence too. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has been studying chronic wasting disease. In an extreme experiment, they injected the brains of 13 cows with the disease. Three of them got it. Still, the overwhelming scientific evidence is that cows can't get chronic wasting disease.
Scientists at the University of Wyoming have been feeding meat contaminated with the disease to cattle for four years now as part of an ongoing study. So far, none of them have been affected. It's just one reason why the Canadian food inspection agency says cattle are not at risk.
GEORGE LUTTERBACH, CAN. FOOD INSPECTION AGENCY: Our investigation to date has found no linkage to any elk or deer, either farms or animals.
STEVENSON: Still, scientists haven't totally ruled it out.
STORY: It hasn't been ruled out at all, no, but it's a very small probability of it occurring.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
STEVENSON: But no one is taking any chances, especially in The United States. The University of Wyoming and a number of government agencies are doing long-term studies just in case -- Fredricka.
WHITFIELD: Well, Mark, if Saskatchewan is a chronic waste hot spot, then how is where you are in Calgary?
STEVENSON: They've also found chronic wasting disease here in Alberta. In fact, they've had three cases, mostly in wild deer, but it's nothing compared to Saskatchewan. They've had hundreds of cases there. One person I talked to described it as a chronic wasting disease hot spot.
WHITFIELD: All right, Mark Stevenson, thanks very much, with CTV.
Well, still to come on NEXT@CNN, can sitcoms help stop the spread of SARS? One country is trying this unusual way to get the facts out and the hysteria down. We'll show you how. Stay tuned.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: Now in Singapore, the big story is SARS. And TV viewers there who want to keep up on the story need to look no further than the SARS channel.
CNN's Mike Chinoy tuned in to check it out.
MIKE CHINOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: From here in Taiwan, now the site of the world's fastest growing outbreak, to mainland China where the epidemic began, to Hong Kong where it seems to be under control, SARS has preoccupied a lot of people in Asia recently. But while there are, no doubt, plenty of folks who would love to think of something else, in Singapore, which has had its own SARS outbreak, there's a new TV station that broadcasts nothing else. It's the SARS channel. All SARS all the time, 12 hours a day, seven days a week.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's no shortcut to vigilance.
ERNEST WONG, MEDIACORP GROUP: It's new, ministerial speeches, parliamentary discussions on the subject. Health tips, plus various extracts of sitcoms on SARS, or even bits of drama on the subject.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's become a common enemy that cuts across race.
CHINOY: Launched by Singapore's three main media companies or normally rivals, the SARS channel is aimed at educating and entertaining a SARS-spooked public.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: SARS channel, know it to fight it.
TERRY GLONTZ, STAR HUB: We wanted to have one source where we could aggregate, bring all of this content together for people to be able to view it. And as we got to thinking about it, we said we should begin using technology to help fight SARS, as well.
CHINOY: But the advent of the SARS channel shows how deeply the disease has seeped into public consciousness here, and how, even though things are improving in some places, the obsession with SARS is likely to be around in this part of the world for sometime to come.
Mike Chinoy, CNN, Taipei.
WHITFIELD: Well, that's all we have time for now.
Here's what's coming up next weekend. What's big for summer? The usual amount of fun plus three things that aren't good news. Will soggy weather in the east bring more mosquitoes and West Nile virus? Will the bone-dry western US suffered through another year of drought and wildfires.
And will the official start of hurricane season kick off a year of storms?
That and much more coming up next Saturday at 3:00 Eastern time on NEXT@CNN.
Straight ahead, "CNN LIVE SUNDAY" with an update on that lost dog found an incredible 1,000 miles away from home.
And at 7:00 Eastern time is "PEOPLE IN THE NEWS" profiling Melissa Etheridge and Margaret Chow.
And at 8:00 Easter "CNN PRESENTS" "Killing Pablo: Inside the Manhunt for Columbian Drug Lord Pablo Escobar." CNN continues right after this quick break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WHITFIELD: Hello. I'm Fredricka Whitfield at the CNN headquarters in Atlanta.
Our top stories, this just in. A second sailor has reportedly gone overboard the USS Nassau. Just Friday, one sailor went overboard. And during a futile search for Dwayne Williams (ph), it was determined that he was lost at sea. His family has been making its way to North Carolina. That ship is en route to North Carolina and is expected to pull into the Camp Lejeune coastal area tomorrow morning, and those Marines will be departing from the USS Nassau, an amphibious unit before making its way back to its port in Norfolk, Virginia. When we get more information on that, we'll be bringing that to you.
Meantime, the Associated Press reports that three people were killed when an Iraqi missile blew up in a poor Baghdad neighborhood. The accident happened as Iraqi contractors were removing four unexploded missiles left over from the war.
The Israeli cabinet has approved a so-called roadmap to peace. Now to implement it. The Palestinian foreign minister says Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his Palestinian counterpart Mahmoud Abbas are expected to meet tomorrow.
In Taiwan, 12 new reported deaths are being blamed on severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. But health officials still believe the spread of the disease is slowing and have urged people to resume they're normal lives.
It's election day in Spain. And early election polls indicate, Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar may pay dearly for backing the U.S.- led war in Iraq. Up to 90 percent of Spaniards oppose the war. And the local elections are seen as a referendum on Aznar's conservative party.
"CNN SUNDAY" starts right now.
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