June 29, 1992

Late this afternoon the ocean barge Spring Brook will slip quietly into the East River and head to sea, carrying for the last time one of America's least loved cargoes: 400 tons of New York City's processed sewage. It has been four years since Congress voted to ban the common practice of using the ocean as a municipal chamber pot, and with the Federal deadline set for tomorrow, New York is the only city that still does it. For environmentalists and many politicians, the final barge journey will be a moment of triumph, one they say will make the planet a cleaner, healthier place.

As pressure mounted for an effort to provide relief to the besieged city of Sarajevo, President Bush initiated intensive consultations this weekend with European allies over forming an international military coalition to break the blockade and deliver humanitarian aid to the Bosnian capital, Administration officials said today. The President spoke by telephone today with the allies on the eve of a United Nations Security Council meeting scheduled for Monday, at which diplomats said the Council members were likely to consider military action to bring relief to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

A body unearthed in a shallow grave in southern New Jersey Saturday night was identified as Sidney J. Reso, the Exxon official kidnapped in April. He had been shot in the arm, but the authorities refused to speculate if that played a part in his death. Article, page B1.

As New York City struggles to pay for essential services, it is spending huge and growing amounts of money each year to settle or satisfy lawsuits for medical malpractice, auto accidents, slip-and-falls and the like. By tomorrow, the end of the city's fiscal year, New York will have spent a projected $229 million for such claims, 48 percent more than it did three years ago and more than the city spends to operate all its parks and libraries.

In a renewed effort to overcome the species barrier in transplantation and to help relieve the dire shortage of human donor organs, surgeons from the University of Pittsburgh today took a liver from a baboon and implanted it in a human patient. The recipient was a man dying from hepatitis B, a virus that had destroyed his liver and had made him ineligible to receive a donated human organ.