InSites is a quarterly newsletter that highlights the personalities and projects of the Waste Management Research and Education Institute (WMREI) of The University of Tennessee. WMREI is an affiliate of the EERC.

WMREI was created in 1985 as a state-funded Center of Excellence. Research areas include solid-, hazardous-, and nuclear-waste management; waste minimization; and pollution prevention.

Biotechnology is the focal point of the institute's technical research, while issues involving public attitudes and federal/state policies related to waste-management issues are the primary concerns of the institute's policy research.

For additional information about InSites, or to be added to our mailing list, please write InSites, WMREI, The University of Tennessee, 311 Conference Building, Knoxville, TN 37996-4134, call 865-974-1156, or fax 865-974-1838. Or, if you prefer, email us.

Biology Writ Small

Interdisciplinary ventures among researchers at UT and ORNL are opening new vistas in biotechnology and medicine.

By Elise LeQuire

A biological system can be exceedingly small. Many of the cells are very tiny, but they are very active; they manufacture various substances; they walk around; they wiggle; and they do all kinds of marvelous things—all on a very small scale.

—Richard Feynman, “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom”

In his 1959 essay, the Nobel-prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman dared scientists to explore nature on the tiniest scale to gain a richer understanding of its workings.

More than four decades later, pioneers in disciplines as seemingly disparate as materials science and engineering, biology, and biotechnology are realizing Feynman’s dream by probing, manipulating, and simulating the functions of living organisms on the cellular and even the subcellular level.

“Feynman used his imagination and his knowledge of physics to envision bionanotechnology before it happened. Many disciplines are now working on the scale of the nanometer [a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter],” says Anatoli Melechko, research associate with the University of Tennessee’s (UT) Center for Environmental Biotechnology (CEB) and assistant research professor in UT’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Melechko is part of Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s (ORNL) Molecular-Scale Engineering and Nanoscale Technologies (MENT) research group and works closely with Michael Simpson, MENT founding principal investigator, and Timothy McKnight, MENT staff engineer, on several projects at the interface between the physical and life sciences. 

A key component of this line of research is the fabrication of minuscule carbon nanofibers, which serve as tiny tools that form an interface with living cells. Funding for these projects comes from the Department of Energy, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the Department of Defense, and the National Institutes of Health. CEB received one of the DARPA grants.

“Nature is a nanometer-scale factory, and we are trying to mimic what nature is doing,” Melechko says. “We can’t make as fine a machine as nature, but we can work on a slightly larger scale.”

Visualizing the nanoscale environment takes especially strong microscopes that were unavailable 40 years ago. Thanks to a major grant from the National Science Foundation based on a proposal written by CEB Senior Research Specialist David Nivens, UT scientists will soon be peering through ever more powerful scopes when they acquire a half-million-dollar imaging system capable of exploring materials of atomic scale.

The system is being assembled with the help of David Joy, the head of UT’s electron microscopy facility. “Not only can we look at the atomic structure with these atomic-force microscopes, we can also manipulate the atoms with these scopes,” says Gary Sayler, director of UT’s Center for Environmental Biotechnology (CEB).

While other research facilities across the United States are using atomic-force microscopes, UT is assembling an instrument that will tune into biological materials without destroying them. “That’s a very big leap,” Sayler says.

Fooling with Nature

One foray into manipulating the nanoenvironment has Melechko and his colleagues synthesizing probes from carbon cone-shaped nanofibers. The team coaxes the fibers to grow into vertically aligned arrangements like a forest of tiny tubes.

The tubes, fused at high temperatures (700 degrees C) onto silicon wafers, taper upward to a tip that is only about 30 nanometers, less than one-tenth the size of the base. That’s about 100 times smaller than a typical mammalian cell.

By comparison, in genetic engineering research such as cloning, a micropipette is used to deliver a gene into an egg. “A micropipette is pretty big, almost the size of a cell,” says Melechko. “It requires a trained professional and can be applied to just one cell at a time.” With these forests of carbon nanofiber tubes, multiple probes can be introduced into living cells.

The team then fuses genetically modified genes onto the tips of the nanofibers and inserts the resulting probes, which are like tiny graphite pencil tips, inside the membranes of cells derived from a subclone of Chinese hamster ovary cells. “We insert a nonliving object with a gene on it into a cell without killing the cell,” says Melechko. “The gene is integrated inside the cell as a new, artificial organelle.”

Says Sayler: “Melechko is a wizard at chemically growing these nanofibers in exquisite detail and arrangements and then probing living cells.” The technique will eventually allow intracellular monitoring and manipulation of complex cell processes. “Overcoming the difficulties of gene insertion into cells will pave the way for practical genetic therapies, efficient genetic engineering of plants, and large-scale protein synthesis using bacteria,” Melechko says.

Schmoozing with Slime

As living cells that respond to their environment in complex ways, bacteria hold great promise as sensors to detect biological and chemical agents in the environment or to monitor complex physiological processes in a human body. “Living organisms are very sensitive and highly specific to what attacks them,” Melechko says.            

Bacteria also join forces, forming colonies that act like sophisticated organisms dedicated to their own survival. They can, for example, create a simple barrier that acts as a shield to fend off outside invaders, develop vascular structures that allow the organism to take in nutrients and excrete waste, or collectively detect and mount defenses against antibiotics and other threats to their immune systems.

We know these colonies as slime, Melechko says, but in the lab they’re called microbial biofilm. “Bacteria can sense chemical and biological agents, including anthrax, better than an electrochemical device, with higher specificity and at smaller concentrations,” he says. “Our goal is to create an electrical and electrochemical interface with bacteria.”

To that end, Melechko and his colleagues grow their forests of nanofibers onto tiny electrodes. The construct serves as a scaffold on which to grow strains of Escherichia coli. “By forming a biofilm, the bacteria make a rugged structure that is easy to communicate with electronically since it forms at the surface of the chip.”   

The Highest Form of Flattery

A fluid lipid membrane envelops natural cells and serves as a cell container. The cell membrane also serves as a sophisticated gatekeeper for the cell’s contents. “Cells are absolutely amazing chemical factories,” Melechko says. “We would like to be able to perform at least the simplest operations that live cells can perform, such as signal transduction, energy conversion, and chemical synthesis.”

While other researchers have created artificial membranes using polymer films, metals with nanopores, and silicon, so far these artificial membranes are much thicker than natural membranes and don’t allow scientists to explore the permeability of cell membranes, which is key to manipulating them.

As part of a project led by Mitch Doktycz with the Life Sciences Division of ORNL, Melechko and his colleagues have devised a way to imitate the structure of cell membranes at the nanoscale level using vertically aligned carbon nanofibers placed in a fluid medium. “Our carbon nanofiber forest could be used to make semipermeable membranes in a microfluidic structure,” says Melechko.

The ability to probe, manipulate, and mimic cellular processes using artificial structures opens up “new vistas in biotechnology and medicine,” he says.•

* * *

For more information contact Anatoli Melechko, Center for Environmental Biotechnology, 676 Dabney Hall, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, or call 865-974-8080.

For a better understanding of scale, take a visual journey from the Milky Way to a quark and back, at the Web site of the Florida State University Research Foundation and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory: < http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/scienceopticsu/powersof10/ >.

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Safety First

Protecting school children from common pests—and the chemicals used to control them—is a delicate balancing act.

by Elise LeQuire

Most parents exercise good judgment in keeping infants and toddlers safe. We strap them into car seats, childproof our homes to keep prying fingers and curious noses away from harmful chemicals and medicines, and try to provide them healthy, nutritious meals.

But when we pack them off to school and child care, who’s responsible for maintaining a clean and safe environment? In nearly half of the 50 states, it’s up to school officials to deal with most environmental hazards, including pests such as cockroaches, ants, head lice, and stinging insects.

The traditional regime in the United States for pest control calls for regular application of insecticides: toxic chemicals designed to disrupt the nervous system, inhibit energy production, halt formation of the cuticle or outer shell, disrupt the endocrine system, or upset the water balance of the targeted insect.

All pesticides registered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have been tested for some adverse health effects in animals, but humans, especially children, cannot ethically be exposed to such testing. While the body of research on what pesticides are doing to our children is growing, there are large and important gaps in what we know.

“Animal studies have documented that in vitro exposure to some of these chemicals can have very precise effects, including neurological effects, developmental disabilities, and respiratory problems,” says Mary Rogge, a faculty associate with the University of Tennessee’s (UT) Energy, Environment and Resources Center and an associate professor in UT’s College of Social Work.

We also know that children are more sensitive to chemicals, including pesticides. “Pound per pound, kids breathe, eat, and drink more than adults,” Rogge says. “Certain groups of children are also more vulnerable because of poverty, lack of resources, poor nutrition, compromised immune systems, and other chemical exposures outside the school environment.”

During 2001, Rogge and colleagues with UT’s Youth, Environment, and Health (UT YEAH) Research Team conducted a series of six regional workshops to discuss the concept of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) with stakeholders across the state of Tennessee. The project was funded by UT’s Environment and Natural Resources Research Council and Waste Management Research and Education Institute (WMREI), EPA, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The UT YEAH team is now gathering and analyzing data on the nearly 3,000 licensed centers and about 2,800 in-home facilities where pre-schoolers spend time. “We have begun to train childcare providers in Knox County and are scheduled to do some training for childcare-center administrators this spring, thanks to Caryn Paul, the health and safety coordinator for the Knox Area Childcare Resource Center,” says Rogge. “The Center is one of 12 across Tennessee that provides training, education, and support for in-home and childcare-center providers.”  

Rogge and fellow UT YEAH team member Martha Keel, associate professor of Housing and Environmental Health in the UT Agricultural Extension Service’s Department of Family and Consumer Sciences, will be conducting a statewide training session on “Environmental Health in Child Care” for the Tennessee Department of Health’s Division of Maternal and Child Health. The training, aimed at new childcare centers and Headstart health counselors, is scheduled for March 20, 2003. 

A Balancing Act

The aim of IPM is to balance the very real risks of pests against the risks of human exposure to pesticides. “We know what pests can do. It’s less certain what the effects of pesticides are. We want to reduce exposure [of children] to both, keeping in mind that pests do have to be controlled. IPM is really the best way to manage pests,” says Karen Vail, an associate professor in the Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology at UT’s Institute of Agriculture. Vail has been working to introduce the concept of IPM into school districts since 1996.

“First, you monitor the environment to see what you have,” says Vail. “You need to understand the pest’s biology and decide how to proceed; otherwise, you are applying pesticides on a monthly basis and hoping to get lucky.” Alternative approaches to blanket spraying may include such common-sense measures as sealing openings that might provide pests easy access to structures, trimming shrubs and trees away from the structure, and keeping mulch about 12 to 18 inches away from buildings to discourage easy access by crawling insects. (See “IPM: A Four-Step Approach” below.)

Results from Vail’s statewide survey of 149 school districts in 1997 indicated cockroaches and ants as the pests of greatest concern in Tennessee’s schools. Cockroaches and their body parts and feces are known to trigger asthma. Moreover, fire ants marching across the Southeast, including Tennessee, can deliver painful stings that result in pustules, and may cause more serious health concerns in a small percentage of individuals. Other pests of concern include head lice, rodents, spiders, and wasps, although head lice are not a pest management professional’s responsibility. 

Take it away

Like the people they bug, pests need food, water, and shelter to survive. By following simple IPM procedures to remove access to these basic needs, administrators can reduce or eliminate troublesome pests in schools, childcare centers, and other child-serving facilities. Vail outlined these steps in a booklet, “Suggested Guidelines for Managing Pests in Tennessee’s Schools: Adopting Integrated Pest Management.”

Responses to the 1997 survey also indicated 12 percent of Tennessee schools—primarily the larger school systems, such as Nashville and Memphis, where environmental awareness among parents tends to be greater—used some form of IPM. About 38 percent of the state’s children attend such schools.

A bill to require IPM programs in Tennessee’s public schools died in committee in 2002, so it’s primarily up to principals or purchasing agents to decide on a pest-management program. Often, these decision makers have no background in IPM and are affected by high turnover rates, making it necessary for pest-management specialists to educate each new wave of purchasing agents.

“We are expecting purchasing officers to understand the principles of IPM, which is difficult if they don’t have any training,” Vail says. “It would help if the state had an organized purchasing agent association where we could train these essential personnel on how to write bid specifications to get IPM in their schools.”

While the UT YEAH team has made progress in disseminating information on IPM in the larger school districts, Vail says future efforts will target smaller, rural districts. Indeed, each school building and grounds presents specific challenges. Older buildings, for example, may have cracks that offer easy entry for pests, while newer, airtight buildings may suffer from poor indoor air quality (IAQ), compounding environmental risks posed by a number of contaminants, like fumes from diesel fuel or mold from leaky roofs and ducts.

IPM in Limbo

In 1999, EPA sent every school administrator in the United States an informational kit, IAQ Tools for Schools. The kit is targeted to school administrators who may want to assess multiple hazards in their schools, including pesticides, while finding concrete ways to improve the overall environment in the nation’s schools. These measures, however, are for the most part voluntary.

Efforts were defeated at the federal level to require implementation of IPM in all U.S. public schools when the School Environment Protection Act, as an amendment to the 2002 Farm Bill, was killed. The bill would have protected children from pesticides and required notification when pesticides were being used.

The bill’s failure means that in Tennessee, for example, the only regulation is that pesticides must be applied by, or under the direct supervision of, a licensed professional. While implementation of IPM is strictly voluntary, Rogge says, input from concerned citizens and parents can sway decision makers.

“As more problems are identified, schools and other child-serving facilities will be faced with more liability issues,” Rogge says. School officials can arm themselves in advance, however, by using EPA’s Tools for Schools guidelines. In addition, while IPM may be more costly to implement at first, Rogge says officials need to consider that healthy students are good for the bottom line. “Healthier kids get better test scores and have fewer absences,” she says.

“I don’t take the stand that chemicals are innocent until proven guilty. If we can do something to balance the risks from pests and pesticides from an economic, environmental, equity, and health perspective, we need to proceed on a precautionary basis. It’s just prudent to go another route when the options are available,” Rogge says.•

* * * 

For more information visit the UT YEAH Web site at <http://utyeah.utk.edu>, or contact Mary Rogge at 974-7500 or <mrogge@utk.edu >.

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IPM : A Four-Step Approach

In 2001, the University of Tennessee’s Youth, Environment, and Health (UT YEAH) Research Team held stakeholder workshops on the risks of pests and pesticides and the basics of Integrated Pest Management (IPM). "Kids, Pests, and Chemicals in Tennessee" involved 140 participants in six Tennessee school districts: Knoxville, Nashville, Jackson, Jonesborough, Chattanooga, and Memphis. Stakeholders included school and government officials, pest-management and healthcare professionals, environmental groups, concerned citizens, parents, childcare providers, and regulators.

The goal of the workshops was to raise awareness of the dangers of pesticides, especially in children, and to outline the major principles of IPM. The team is also conducting a follow-up survey of the school systems to determine which are implementing IPM.

A 1997 survey revealed that about 75 percent of Tennessee school districts relied on contracts with pest-management services to control pests, did not have an official policy statement concerning pest management, and used routine scheduled spraying of pesticides. In addition, pest-control technicians made the decision when and where to apply pesticides in nearly 41 percent of the schools, while the principal made the decision in about 36 percent.

Pesticide dangers to fetuses, infants, and children are greater than for adults because of the multiple pathways of exposure before and after conception, post-natal exposure, exposure during early developmental stages through adolescence—when the reproductive system is immature—and through environmental exposure from surfaces, inhalation, food and water consumption, and contact with objects such as plastic toys, on which residual amounts of pesticides can remain for long periods of time.

To reduce the risk of exposing children to pests and pesticides in schools, IPM follows a four-step approach:

— Elise LeQuire

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The Buzz about IPM: Mapping the Acoustic Signature of Insects

Insects can be the boon or the bane of the farmer. Pollinators and predators improve productivity, while pests like the boll weevil can cause millions of dollars of damage to crops; other pests, like mosquitoes, serve as vectors of disease organisms that transmit malaria and West Nile Virus.

Determining exactly when insect population levels require intervention helps Integrated Pest Management (IPM) regimes minimize economic and environmental costs associated with insect-control measures. Presently, human scouts take a census of insects by checking baited traps in the field, which is time consuming. Unfortunately, such traps also collect non-target insects, many of them beneficial.

Raj Raman, an associate professor with the University of Tennessee’s (UT) Institute of Agriculture, along with colleagues in the Department of Biosystems Engineering and Environmental Science (BEES) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, set out to find a better method to detect insect populations. Raman and his colleagues are developing monitors that can sense and identify distinct acoustic signatures of flying insects.

In laboratory studies conducted in summer 2002, researchers used a flight chamber fitted with microphones to record the sounds of wing beats of insects in flight. "We used honey bees, stable flies, and Asian tiger mosquitoes because it’s pretty easy to tell them apart based on frequency. But we were surprised: We could even tell the old mosquitoes from the young ones," Raman says, something the human ear can’t readily do.

Within a year, Raman expects acoustic monitors will be ready for field testing at three sites: UT’s Trial Gardens on the Knoxville campus, the UT Arboretum in Oak Ridge, and a cotton field at the Milan Experiment Station in western Tennessee. Potential target insects include cotton pests such as the boll weevil, tomato pests such as pin worm, and disease vectors such as mosquitoes. The team hopes to develop the technology within three years to the point that it is economically feasible to use in monitoring mosquito populations for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

"We’re interested in the practical applications as well as the basic science, two avenues that are not mutually exclusive," Raman says. "We’d like to get a useful device into the works soon so CDC can correlate it with more traditional surveillance methods and verify its efficacy."

Raman traces his interest in the acoustics and behavior of insects to his earlier studies observing flies with Reid Gerhardt, a medical-veterinary entomologist with UT’s Institute of Agriculture. They studied the behavior of face flies in response to the odor of cow manure, using biological methods to quantify manure odor. Raman also collaborates with John Wilkerson, BEES associate professor, and scientists Cy Smith and Glenn Allgood of Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

— Elise LeQuire

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Responding to the Unthinkable

UT and Knox County will host a pilot program to help the local community prepare for catastrophic events involving mass fatalities.

By Elise LeQuire

To help communities prepare for, respond to, and recover from unforeseen disasters involving loss of life, the National Mass Fatalities Institute (NMFI) of Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has launched eight pilot programs across the nation.

The University of Tennessee’s Energy, Environment and Resources Center (EERC) and Knox County officials will co-host one of the first of these workshops with NMFI in summer 2003 at UT’s Conference Center.

“The goal of the program is to train a diverse group of professionals in the local community to perform specific tasks and help them develop their mass-fatalities plans,” says Sheila Webster, director of EERC’s Technology Research and Development Program and local coordinator for the mass-fatality training. “At the end of the workshop, participants will understand the special circumstances associated with a mass-fatalities incident.” 

Incident Response

A mass-fatalities incident is one in which the number of deaths overwhelms local resources, including morgue capacity and emergency agencies. “Las Vegas might be able to handle 10 fatalities, while a smaller community might be able to handle only three,” says Beth Thompson, NMFI’s program coordinator.

No one, of course, could have anticipated a disaster as devastating as the collapse of the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center (see related story “9-11: Recovery Mission” on page 5). In that incident, emergency responders first geared up to deal with a massive number of injured. It soon became evident, however, that local hospitals would not be overwhelmed by incoming patients. In fact, there was only a handful of survivors. The event did, however, strain the ability of responders to recover and handle the remains of the victims. On top of the huge emotional impact of the devastation, Ground Zero was a crime scene, and human remains were considered evidence.

One component of the NMFI workshop is designed to help responders deal sensitively with victims’ remains, survivors, and family members amidst potentially chaotic situations.

Organizers of the workshop invite representatives from an eclectic group of local professionals and volunteers who might be expected to respond to similar incidents. “We aim to attract a cross section of professionals, including mental health workers, emergency responders, physicians, police, funeral directors, and clergy,” Thompson says.

When the proportions of a disaster reach a threshold that exceeds the ability of local government to handle the response with available resources, local officials may request assistance from the state, says Peter Teahen, the director of NMFI. Teahen co-authored with Lisa LaDue, co-founder of NMFI, the 10-volume plan used in the training program. “Only when a state has used all its available resources would the state then request Federal Disaster Assistance,” Teahen says.

Aftershocks

Whenever fatalities are involved, the mental health of victims and responders during and after the event is a huge concern. Building on experience from past events, the workshop trains personnel to conduct debriefings for responders after a catastrophe. Debriefing is a crisis-management technique that helps workers and responders handle the potential after-effects of stress stemming from their involvement in devastating incidents.

Dealing with the emotional needs of survivors and family members of the deceased is also crucial. To that end, program organizers have developed a component of the program to simulate delicate real-life situations faced by responders. A mock disaster, such as a plane crash, is planned for each of the workshops to prepare responders to deal with crisis situations where emotions run high.

Role playing engages participants on the giving and receiving end of the bad news. Participants may assume the role of parents of the deceased, who may be asked to provide personal effects, such as hair from a hair brush that might contain DNA, to aid in the identification of a victim. Webster is also helping prepare a concise, goals-oriented student manual to accompany the training program. “This manual will help the student succinctly review each component of the 10-volume plan,” she says.

Topics for the workshop include protocol for incident command, orientation of agencies and volunteers, disaster-site and morgue-site organization, family assistance and notification of next-of-kin, mental health services during and after a disaster, chaplaincy, security, public information, health services, and handling of evidence.

The program is funded through NMFI by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and supported on the local level by EERC and Knox County. “Catastrophic events can have severe economic, environmental, and emotional effects,” Webster says. “This training program is designed to mitigate negative impacts by helping emergency agencies devise a plan to put trained people in place who are sensitive to catastrophic situations. EERC and UT are very pleased to partner with Knox County to host a workshop of this nature.”•

 * * *

For more information contact Sheila Webster at (865) 974-1985 or <eercmeet@utk.edu>, or see conference information at http://eerc.ra.utk.edu/what-new/conference.htm .

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9-11 : Recovery Mission

After the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center crumbled on September 11, 2001, a stunned nation stayed glued to news coverage, unable to fathom the extent of devastation.

When W.T. "Teddy" Phillips Jr. and his colleagues at Phillips and Jordan saw the buildings collapse, however, they began marshalling forces to assist in the recovery mission. "When we saw those buildings come down, we scrambled, knowing that a call was probably going to come," says Phillips, vice chairman of the Knoxville-based general and specialty contracting firm.

Phillips and Jordan is the only contractor in the nation pre-positioned in multiple regions throughout the United States, under an Advance Contracting Initiative (ACI) with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, to respond swiftly in recovery efforts in the event of natural and human-caused disasters. They are pre-authorized to operate in nine heavily populated states: Florida, Texas, the six states in the Corps’ New England district, and New York. 

The call from the Corps of Engineers came on September 12. "We left on the 13th and drove all night to Ground Zero, arriving on day three," says Phillips, who recounted his company’s World Trade Center disaster recovery mission at the University of Tennessee’s Science Forum in January 2003.

Phillips and Jordan’s mission in the recovery project was threefold. First, the contractor was to be the eyes and ears of the Corps of Engineers at the 16-acre site of the World Trade Center, where debris ranged from steel beams weighing in excess of 4,400 pounds per linear foot to fire trucks and ambulances crushed by falling debris to human remains smaller than a fingernail. "Our role at Ground Zero was strictly advisory," Phillips says.

Second, Phillips and Jordan was to oversee the debris-sorting process for the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island, which had been closed in March 2001 but was reopened in the aftermath of the disaster. On October 1, the Corps of Engineers, which is the construction arm of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), awarded the firm a one-page, lump-sum contract for dismantling and sorting debris at the landfill. There, the company oversaw nine major construction subcontractors and worked with dozens of local, state, and federal agencies, from the City of New York to FEMA.

"The city realized it needed construction expertise to achieve the desired results: mechanically, to sort and reduce all the debris," Phillips says. "We were positioned to lead the project."

Third, the company was charged with devising a health and safety plan for the Staten Island landfill operations to minimize exposure to hazardous materials and help orchestrate humanitarian efforts.

After a first inspection at Ground Zero, the rubble was hauled by truck and barge to the landfill on the western edge of Staten Island. Some 135 acres of the 2,200-acre site were set aside for sorting debris, support services, and staging areas for the New Jersey National Guard, the American Red Cross, and the Salvation Army. In addition, the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency provided portable air monitors and issued protective suits, gloves, boots, and respirators.  

The debris—which consisted of ordinary construction materials such as steel beams and rebar, glass, and concrete—also contained crucial pieces of criminal evidence and classified and sensitive documents from Buildings 6 and 7. Among these documents were blueprints of the electrical wiring system for the White House. Tenants of Building 6, the U.S. Customs House, included several federal agencies such as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

After front-end loaders and bulldozers arranged the debris into scatter fields, workers conducted visual inspections, raking through the debris for personal belongings, sensitive documents, and human remains. Human remains were taken to the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office for identification. In addition, a humanitarian effort was launched to return personal belongings to the families of the victims.

Cooperation among the subcontractors and various agencies involved in the nine-month recovery effort ran high. "Equipment costing thousands of dollars was handed over with a handshake," Phillips says. So many people working as fast as possible with dangerous heavy equipment posed a real risk to human safety. Thanks in part to a very low turnover among subcontractors, however, the operators learned to synchronize their operations. "It was like a ballet out there," Phillips says. "This is what the public didn’t see."

— Elise LeQuire

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Staff Citings

PROJECTS. Tim Gangaware , associate director of the University of Tennessee’s Water Resources Research Center (WRRC), John Buchanan (Biosystems Engineering and Environmental Science), and Bruce Tschantz, a research scientist with WRRC and professor emeritus (Civil & Environmental Engineering ), have been working with the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation to develop a training program on erosion prevention and sediment control for the construction industry. WRRC’s course, sponsored in part by the Tennessee Department of Transportation, includes sessions on erosion effects on natural resources, the roles of state agencies and local officials, the construction/stormwater permitting process, and best management practices. Ultimately, the state may require course certification before developers can obtain construction permits in Tennessee.

HONORS.  The American Water Resources Association recently honored Graduate Research Assistant Aaron Routhe for his presentation of “Planners and the Public: The Role of Attitudes in Water Supply Planning.” Routhe described initial findings of a study conducted with his advisor, EERC Faculty Associate Robert Emmet Jones (Department of Sociology and Southeast Water Policy Initiative). Routhe and Jones contend that understanding public attitudes about water resources can help citizens and decision makers resolve management disputes and promote more effective water policy. Routhe gave his “Outstanding Student Presentation,” in November at the AWRA Water Resources Conference in Philadelphia during a session on “Resolving Water Conflicts.”

Senior Research Associate Catherine Wilt received “strong consideration” for Waste News’ 2002 Newsmaker of the Year. Wilt was nominated because of her work on product stewardship. Other distinguished finalists included Mayor Michael Bloomberg (New York), Senator Jim Jeffords (chairman, Senate Environment Committee), and President George W. Bush. Ultimately, Wilt and the other newsmakers lost to President Bush.

PUBLICATIONS.  Research Scientist Jean Peretz , along with Bruce Tonn (Department of Urban and Regional Planning) and Michaela Martin (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), co-authored An Assessment of Energy-related Career Paths of Senior Industrial Assessment Center Program Alumni (ORNL/TM-2002/226).

With Sujit Das (ORNL), Peretz and Tonn also prepared a program evaluation and assessment of benefits report on Automotive Lightweighting Materials Program research and development projects (ORNL/TM-2002/181).

Peretz, also president of the East Tennessee Chapter of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA), presented “Evaluating the Benefits of Federal R&D Expenditures” recently at ASPA’s regional Southeastern Conference on Public Administration (SECoPA), in Columbia, South Carolina. Each year, SECoPA addresses current challenges and problems facing public administrators in the Southeast.

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Photo Correction:

InSites writer Kris Christen was not given photo credit for the cover image accompanying "Eroding Values" ( InSites, Winter 2002). The editors regret the omission.

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