Energy, Environment and Resources Center

Jack Barkenbus, Executive Director

Center For Clean Products and Clean Technologies

Gary A. Davis, Director

Office of Communications and Publications

David Brill, Director

Center for Geography and Environmental Education

Rosalyn McKeown-Ice, Director

Oak Ridge Technology Research and Development Program

Sheila Webster, Director

Systems Development Institute

Donald Alvic, Director

Pro-Dialogue

Mary R. English and David L. Feldman, Directors

Water Resources Research Center

Tim Gangaware, Associate Director

For more information call Gail Farris at 865-974-4251 or write to EERC, 311 Conference Center Building, Knoxville, TN 37996-4134.

Visit our Web site at: http://eerc.ra.utk.edu/

Conferences.  Senior Research Scientist David Feldman organized the Southeast Water Supply Roundtable held in November in Peachtree City, Georgia. The forum identified the region's water needs and strategies for shaping an action plan to maintain abundant and clean water in the Southeast. The Roundtable, which drew 120 state, local, and federal officials as well as environmental groups and industry representatives, was sponsored by the Appalachian Regional Commission, EERC, Southern States Energy Board, Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, Tennessee Valley Authority, U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region IV, U.S. Geological Survey, and the University of Tennessee. The New York Times quoted Feldman in a recent article concerning negotiations among Georgia, Alabama, and Florida over water supplies.

Graduate Research Assistant Jeff Duncan of EERC's Water Resources Research Center served as keynote speaker for the Third Annual Tennessee Clean Water Network Conference in Nashville. Duncan's presentation, Trends in Tennessee's Aquatic Biodiversity: Learning from the Past and Predicting the Future, addressed the simultaneous decline of some aquatic species and invasion by others. The net effect of this process is a loss in species diversity across Tennessee's ecoregions. If current trends continue, Duncan maintains, these historically distinct ecoregions will become biologically similar over time.

Presentations.  Research Scientist Jean Peretz recently presented Toward a Risk-based Hazardous Waste Reduction Goal: Evidence from Tennessee at the Southeastern Conference on Public Administration (SECOPA) 1999, in St. Petersburg, Florida. Peretz discussed the role of risk in waste management and how human health risks will affect Tennessee's environmental policy. The conference, which addressed current challenges and problems facing public administrators in the Southeast, drew some 200 academics, practitioners, and students.

Appointments. Executive Director Jack Barkenbus has been awarded a two-month (May and June) visiting scholar fellowship at the East-West Center in Honolulu. The East-West Center, established by the U.S. Congress in 1960, promotes and strengthens relations between the United States and the Asia-Pacific countries through cooperative studies, training, and research. Barkenbus will complete research and present his findings in a policy report titled Regional Institution Building: Asia Pacific Cooperation on the Environment.

Rosalyn McKeown-Ice, director of EERC's Center for Geography and Environmental Education, has been named regional editor for the Green Teacher. The Green Teacher, a quarterly international journal based in Toronto, Ontario, publishes articles and activities designed to advance environmental and global education across K-12 curricula.

Publications.  Senior Research Associate Catherine Wilt, along with Garth Hickle of the Minnesota Office of Environmental Assistance, recently published AA State Approach to Product Stewardship in Resource Recycling (Dec 1999), which discusses state policies on extended producer responsibility. Such policies are designed to manage problem waste streams through life-cycle analysis, product design, and recovery or recycling. Many states are asking product manufacturers and users to bear the financial costs of managing product wastes.