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/

Presentations.  At the Tenth Annual Tennessee Water Resources Symposium, held at Montgomery Bell State Park near Nashville, Tennessee, Senior Research Scientist David Feldman, serving on the Southeast Water Supply Planning Panel, outlined strategies for improving the Southeast's water supply practices and policies. Senior Research Scientist Jack Ranney presented An Ecologist's Study on Sediment Control and Riparian Corridor Changes During Rural-to-Commercial Construction, a poster session demonstrating and addressing the cumulative effects of ecological disturbances at construction sites. UT Assistant Professor Robert Jones (Sociology Department) and Senior Research Assistant Ruth Anne Hanahan of EERC's Water Resources Research Center (WRRC) presented Public Views on Local Watershed Issues and offered policy recommendations based on the results of a survey of public awareness/concern about water quality in local creeks. Graduate Research Assistant Jeff Duncan of WRRC presented Homogenization of Tennessee's Aquatic Biodiversity: Assessing the Past and Predicting the Future. Duncan's presentation is condensed from a chapter co-authored by Duncan and Julie Lockwood of the University of California, which will appear in Biological Homogenization. The book, published by Plenum Press, is slated for release in June.

Awards.  The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation recently presented its Natural Heritage Conservation Award to Saturn Corporation for Saturn's land-management practices. Jack Ranney served as project leader and Research Associate Karen Lorino served as project coordinator for the Saturn-UT Land Use Team, whose work focused on streamside vegetative buffers, problem maintenance areas, native species landscaping, and exotic pest plant control. The Land Use Team worked with Premier Grounds Maintenance, Saturn Facilities Maintenance, and Saturn Farming Operations to enhance native vegetation and wildlife diversity, improve water quality and aesthetics, and reduce maintenance costs at Saturn's 2,500-acre site in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

The East Tennessee Chapter of the Society of Technical Communicators (STC/ETC) recently presented an Award of Merit in Technical Publications to Research Leader Mary English for Tools to Aid Environmental Decision-Making (Springer-Verlag, 1999), which she co-edited with Virginia H. Dale of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Forum for Applied Research and Public Policy took top honors with Best of Show, winning over entries by Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Eastman Chemical. Forum also won two Awards of Distinction, one for Volume 14 (1999, four issues) in the Scholarly/Professional Journal category, and one for Asymmetric Warfare, by Jonathan Tucker (Summer 1999) in the Scholarly/Professional Article category. Mark Sieger's urban sprawl illustration for Forum's Fall 1999 cover won honorable mention in Interpretive Illustration. Forum won two additional awards from The Communicator Awards for its Fall 1999 issue: an Award of Distinction in the Magazine/Government category and an honorable mention for Leland Swenson's Sowing Disaster, in the Writing/Technical category. Associate Director Dennis McCarthy is Forum's editor in chief and Elise LeQuire is managing editor.

The EERC conducts analytical, unbiased, and multidisciplinary research designed to promote real-world solutions to problems in the fields of energy, environment, technology, and economic development.