Stock Committee Sends Opponents Of AP&L to ACSR

The Corporation's subcommittee on shareholder responsibility yesterday referred the question of Harvard's position on a controversial Arkansas River power plant to the student-faculty-alumni Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (ACSR).

In a letter to the officers of the Protect Our Land Association, an Arkansas citizen's group opposed to the proposed coal-fuel power plant which it say will pollute the air and hurt farmers' crops, Hugh Calkins '45, the subcommittee's chairman, said the subcommittee will carefully consider any ACSR recommendation.

Arkansas Power and Light, a wholly owned subsidary of Middle South Utilities, plans to build the plant. Harvard is the largest single shareholder in Middle South Utilities, with about $10 million worth of stock.

In his letter, Calkins said the subcommittee would like the ACSR--which will meet today--to consider not only the merits of the Protect Our Land Association's position, but also whether shareholders should take positions on the ecological impact of companies they own stock in at all, "in view of the existence of public service commissions and other state and federal bodies charged with environmental protection."