UT, Saturn Seek to Improve Carmaker's Land Management

by David Brill

It's no surprise that Saturn Corporation, the car manufacturer based in Spring Hill, Tennessee, places a premium on designing attractive, functional automobiles.

What is surprising is that Saturn--part of an industry not particularly renowned for its environmental record--is also determined to leave a delicate, even aesthetic, footprint on the rural middle-Tennessee landscape.

But then Saturn seems more inclined than most manufacters to improve its environmental performance. Consider, for instance, Saturn's cooperative project with The University of Tennessee's (UT's) Center for Clean Products and Clean Technologies (CCPCT), which aims to help Saturn designers create cleaner and greener automobiles (see "Back to the Drawing Board," InSites, Spring 1996).

The latest UT/Saturn cooperative project will tap the expertise of UT's Energy, Environment, and Resources Center (EERC) and the university's Department of Ornamental Horticulture and Landscape Design (OHLD) in devising a strategy to help Saturn improve land management of its 2,500-acre facility.

The Saturn Land-Use Project, as it's called, commenced in January and will extend for up to three years. Saturn is funding the project at $100,000 per year. The undertaking marks a return engagement of sorts for OHLD Associate Professor Sam Jones and his department, which played a role in devising Saturn's landscape scheme some years ago.

The company's interest in the venture isn't entirely altruistic; eventually, the project could help Saturn cut grounds-maintenance costs, which now exceed a half million dollars per year, all while beautifying the facility.

"Saturn decided to get involved in this project for two obvious reasons," says William Miller, Saturn's manager of environmental affairs, who will oversee the company's role in the project. "It's good for the environment, but it also makes good business sense."

UT participants echo those goals.

"Our task is to help Saturn adopt cheaper, more environmentally sound grounds-maintenance options that don't destroy the manicured look that's so important to the company," says project manager Jack Ranney, assistant director of the Joint Institute for Energy and Environment, a consortium comprising UT, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Saturn's selection of EERC to lead the project made sense from a number of angles, Miller says.

"There are clear advantages to working with a center rather than individual departments," he says. "Chiefly, the center boasts numerous areas of expertise and historically has done a good job of acting as an access point for the university's interdisciplinary research resources."

The project's broadest goals involve increasing wildlife habitat, enhancing biodiversity, reducing the area that requires mowing, and creating marshes and other buffer zones. These zones will both beautify the area and improve water quality by separating streams from the cultivated fields that surround the Saturn facility.

"This project offers Saturn multiple opportunities," says Kim Davis, assistant director of UT's Waste Management Research and Education Institute, who will administer the project. "It will improve the quality and health of the natural environment, but it will also allow Saturn to promote its commitment to environmental stewardship and bolster employee morale by improving the aesthetics of the plant's heavily used areas and roadways."

In executing their plan, researchers will reintroduce native plant species, including red cedars, hackberry trees, oak, blackberry bushes, and various annual and perennial wild flowers, all of which are perfectly suited to the region's soil and climatic conditions.

The project primarily targets the open spaces that surround the plant grounds, which can be divided into three distinct corridors, or zones, based on landscape features and current use.

The first zone, which borders the plant's east side, is primarily agricultural, and its dominant feature is Johnson Branch, a small stream. Among other goals, researchers will seek to increase the width of the wooded corridor that parallels the stream.

The second zone encompasses Ephlin Parkway, the divided north-south roadway used by Saturn employees and visitors, along with parking areas and entrances to the plant's numerous buildings. Landscape architects hope to use plantings to minimize views of parking lots and reduce areas that require maintenance.

The third zone spans the plant's west side and is used primarily for shipping, receiving, and transporting car parts and materials from building to building. Here researchers hope to create natural sight barriers and a wetland area that will enhance Saturn's ability to control storm runoff and contain any accidental spills that might occur. The marsh will also provide habitat for waterfowl and create wildlife viewing areas.

Though the project poses obvious benefits to Saturn and the surrounding community, according to Ranney, the area's least vocal residents--chiefly wild animal species--may benefit the most.

"This project will not only increase habitat; it will also improve the quality of existing habitat," Ranney says.

Among the project's first undertakings are plant and animal surveys--wildlife head counts, if you will--to establish population baselines. Karen Lorino, a UT researcher working at the Saturn facility, is leading this and other tasks related to landscape ecology. Joel Keebler, a project participant and OHLD graduate student, is supporting Lorino's efforts. Keebler also happens to be an ornithologist and vice president of the Knoxville chapter of the Tennessee Ornithological Society.

Keebler assembled a group of bird watchers who visited the Saturn facility in early March to conduct winter bird counts.

"In the future," Ranney says, "researchers will use these and other population baselines to measure increases and assess effects of our improvements."

For more information, contact Jack Ranney, The University of Tennessee, JIEE, Conference Center Building, Suite 314, Knoxville, TN 37996-4134, or call 865-974-3939.

Choosing Among Evils

An EERC research team examines the techniques states and communities use to assess and rank environmental risks.

by Kris Christen

As signs posted along a muddy stream caution that fish may contain dangerous mercury levels, toxic emissions rise from a petrochemical plant, automobile exhaust tinges the air with smog, and a vacant hazardous waste site plastered with "No Trespassing" signs languishes.

All represent potential risks to public health, the ecology, or quality of life. Nevertheless, states and local communities often encounter difficulties in trying to decide which of them poses the greatest risk and requires the most immediate attention.

For example, do they fix the worst problem first, or do they concentrate on the problem that has captured the most publicity? Do they use the most cost-effective and scientifically based approach for remedying the problem or adopt a spare-no-expenses alternative that sits better with the public?

These are just some of the questions that states and communities grapple with as they compare various environmental problems and attempt to establish priorities for solving them.

"To complicate matters further," says David Feldman, a senior research scientist at The University of Tennessee's (UT's) Energy, Environment, and Resources Center (EERC), "risks that scientists think are the most severe and pose the greatest challenge to the health of the planet and its people are often at odds with what the pubic perceives as the most serious risks."

For example, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the EPA's independent science advisory board, and a number of studies show that indoor air pollution, particularly radon, poses a high probability of public risk, Feldman says.

Conversely, the EPA contends that Superfund sites pose a relatively low risk to the public because most of the inherent risks are already being managed adequately. However, Superfund sites hold a high priority in the public's view because nobody wants to live in a neighborhood close to a toxic waste dump.

To better understand just how communities identify, characterize, rank, prioritize, and respond to environmental risks, Feldman has spearheaded a research effort that evaluates numerous comparative risk projects. The research was funded by UT's Waste Management Research and Education Institute.

These projects, also known as risk-ranking projects, have become popular tools for helping states and localities prioritize environmental issues. For better or worse, these priorities emerge in response to a number of factors and influences, including public concerns, scientific studies, media exposure, and political attention.

Many of these projects were launched during the early 1990s, at the same time that EPA initiatives began to pass on greater responsibility to states and localities for managing environmental problems.

"The EPA realized it could no longer dictate which risks should be managed, and it wanted states and the public to get involved," Feldman says. "At the same time, many states wanted to pull away from Washington's command-and-control tactics and establish their own autonomy, so the time was ripe for these projects."

As these comparative risk projects began emerging across the nation, the EERC recognized an opportunity to evaluate how states and communities were carrying them out.

"This was a new trend that involved the public more than ever mental issues," says Jack Barkenbus, EERC's executive director. "We're involved in the business of evaluating whether new ideas make sense, and if so, how they can be implemented; thus this was something we needed to know more about."

The project teams Feldman with EERC Research Associate Ralph Perhac and Ruth Anne Hanahan, a graduate research assistant. Together, they began examining the goals of these projects, how they're organized and funded, how they involve the public, and ultimately how they rank and prioritize risks.

In evaluating 19 environmental priority-setting projects taking place nationwide, Feldman and his colleagues employed a three-pronged approach. First, they reviewed project reports from 15 states and four cities. From there, they identified three primary areas that needed to be addressed, including how issues get ranked and prioritized in the first place, how the results are used, and how they are evaluated.

Taking the information gleaned from the review, Feldman's group then mailed an 11-page survey to 581 project participants nationwide and received a 26 percent response.

Among other things, the survey sought to identify which project goals had been achieved and which had failed; whether the project and staffing were adequate; whether changes in leadership had occurred and how those changes affected project success; and how and to what extent the projects involved the public.

Their study culminated in a recently published report titled Environmental Priority-Setting in U.S. States and Communities: A Comparative Analysis.

According to the report, comparative risk projects often were initiated because businesses, citizens, and local and state governments felt hobbled by national environmental policies that prescribe specific remedies to pollution problems without regard to the remedies' benefit or cost.

Meanwhile, the team's research also suggests that balancing public opinion and science is the biggest challenge facing those involved in priority-setting projects.

Unfortunately, there's no sure technique for surmounting this difficulty, but Feldman contends that priority-setting projects are most likely to succeed if they involve committees that include scientists and other specialists, along with members of the lay public and special interest groups.

Such an arrangement provides for representation of all interested parties, who, together, can begin to devise a strategy.

"Getting meaningful results hinges not only on informing the public about what's being done," Feldman says, "but, even more important, on directly involving citizens in project development."

Then there's the role of politicians, whose influence should not be underestimated. In fact, the EERC team discovered that projects that enjoyed strong political leadership, along with public involvement, stood the best chances for success.

For instance, Ohio's comparative risk project advocated educating the general public, as well as policymakers, about environmental risk at every phase of the process. As a result, the public knew what was going on. Meanwhile, policymakers were able to make informed decisions and use the legislative process to effect change on issues that almost everyone--scientists, members of the public, and elected officials--agreed were most important.

For more information, contact David Feldman, The University of Tennessee, EERC, Conference Center Building, Suite 311, Knoxville, TN 37996-4134, or call 865-974-4251.

Chemical Testing Made Simple

A UT researcher has turned to microorganisms for help in devising a toxicity test that's as speedy and inexpensive as it is effective.

by Kris Christen

Protozoans, tiny organisms invisible to the naked eye but blessed with a voracious appetite for bacteria suspended in water, could provide the missing link in tests for analyzing the toxicity of various chemicals.

These one-celled creatures are more sensitive than bacteria to chemicals present in the environment, and because their cellular biochemistry is the same as that found in all higher animals, they make great test subjects.

Terry Schultz, a professor in The University of Tennessee's (UT's) College of Veterinary Medicine and coordinator of UT's Graduate Program in Environmental Toxicology, is determined to use these microscopic guinea pigs to develop a standardized test for a variety of toxins.

Their sensitivity to waterborne toxins--along with their ability to breed rapidly in a laboratory--makes protozoans perfect test specimens, particularly the genus Tetrahymena, which is commonly found in fresh water.

"These guys can reproduce themselves in only three to four hours," Schultz says, "which means you can go through eight to 10 generations in just two days."

This makes the assessment of various chemicals during each generational stage both rapid and inexpensive. In the simplest terms, as levels of toxicity increase in water, protozoan populations decline, which provides researchers with a good technique for quantifying toxicity levels.

For instance, to assess the toxicity of a particular chemical on the Tetrahymena species, researchers fill a test vessel with a number of its cells and then add a hazardous substance.

Because these cells reproduce every four hours, researchers are able to look at 10 generations in just 40 hours. This allows toxicologists to track the effects of the poison by measuring reductions in the number of cells that are still vital and reproducing.

By contrast, a fish, a more traditional test subject, reproduces only once annually, so it takes months or years to conduct similar tests. When quick results are essential, researchers can only assess the number of fish that die from exposure to the toxin without knowing how many are still reproducing.

As an added advantage, the new testing method requires a much smaller volume of water--the amount contained in a test tube versus an aquarium necessary to house a fish.

"We can run a number of tests at the same time at varying degrees of toxicity with different chemicals all inside an incubator that's the size of a refrigerator," Schultz says. Then there's the significant cost advantage.

"You can do a Tetrahymena test on one chemical for less than $500," Schultz says. "Whereas that same test on a fish would cost thousands of dollars."

The six chemicals Schultz selected for the validation tests, which are required by the Danish and German Environmental Protection Agencies (EPAs) before the procedure is approved for widespread use, include insecticides, metals, and industrial organic compounds. All are listed in toxic inventories for hazardous substances.

Since 1992, Schultz has been collaborating with the Danish and German EPAs on developing the new testing method. These agencies sought Schultz out after learning that he had been researching the organisms for years and that his investigation posed a whole new approach to toxicology testing.

In refining his technique, Schultz noticed a gap in the food chain in terms of the organisms that had become the mainstay of toxicology testing. While bacteria, algae, crustaceans, and fish had been used widely for such purposes, protozoans, which enter the food chain between bacteria and crustaceans, had not.

UT's Waste Management Research and Education Institute (WMREI) funded part of the actual validation testing, which will allow Schultz to demonstrate the effectiveness of his test methods. Schultz expects that the Danish and German EPAs will complete their assessment as early as this summer.

WMREI Director Gary Sayler, who also serves as director of UT's Center for Environmental Biotechnology, says Schultz's work is important in that these tests can actually show whether natural or human remediation efforts are indeed reducing or eliminating environmental toxicity.

Once the validation testing is complete, Schultz and his colleagues can promote the use of their new testing method among both public- and private-sector firms.

Indeed, this new toxicity test is expected to provide industries with a rapid, inexpensive way of monitoring any aqueous discharges they release into the environment.

"The whole idea was to keep this test simple so that it doesn't require a whole laboratory and full-time, trained technicians," Schultz says.

While initially he expects his method to be applied in the developed world, Schultz suspects it poses the greatest opportunity for developing nations that boast neither the capital nor the technological sophistication necessary to implement more demanding testing procedures.

"With such a simple, cheap test available, we hope that it will be integrated into environmental evaluation controls around the world," Schultz says.

For more information, contact Terry Schultz, The University of Tennessee, College of Veterinary Medicine, P.O. Box 1071, Knoxville, TN 37901-1071, or by e-mail[tschultz@utkux.utcc.utk.edu].

From Trees to Trash to Jobs

Through reuse and recycling, one person's wood waste can provide the foundation for another's occupation.

by Kris Christen

Okay, so timber does grow on trees in Tennessee's lush, green forests. That's still no reason to squander a valuable resource.

"Wood is a native resource for us in Tennessee; it's not something we have to invent or import," says Richard Buggeln, manager of The University of Tennessee's (UT's) Tennessee Materials Exchange in Nashville. The Exchange seeks to find uses for various substances that might otherwise wind up in the landfills.

But where there's wood, there's bound to be wood waste. Consider, for instance, that 40 percent to 60 percent of Tennessee trees felled by the logger's ax wind up as wood waste.

According to the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC), approximately 800,000 tons of wood waste are generated each year in Tennessee alone.

It comes from many sectors--including manufacturing, construction and demolition, and forestry--and it assumes such forms as sawdust, chips, shavings, bark, end-cuts, pallets, and "engineered" wood products.

While some regard these products as pure trash, others, Buggeln among them, tend to regard them as an opportunity.

"The opportunities to add value to this waste and create jobs in the process are tremendous," he says.

Indeed, the potential uses for these products are as varied as their shapes, sizes, and compositions. Take sawdust for example: It can be used as packing material, in animal bedding, or even as a bulking agent in the composting of food waste and sewage sludge.

Likewise, waste from hickory trees can be burned and made into charcoal briquettes or used in the curing of meats and cheeses.

"Even pallet manufacturers are getting into the remanufacturing picture, making new pallets from old ones," Buggeln says.

Each of these uses has the potential to create jobs, as well as divert more wood waste from community landfills to beneficial reuse.

To encourage this trend, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has awarded TDEC a $149,000 grant through its "Jobs Through Recycling" program.

TDEC has tapped Buggeln and UT's Center for Industrial Services (CIS) to administer and steer the project whose goals include educating companies about the possible uses for wood waste, identifying waste-related technology problems and solutions, and assisting small businesses in selecting the appropriate manufacturing technology for their wood wastes.

TDEC selected Buggeln and CIS to execute the grant for good reason. CIS works not only to help Tennessee's industries compete more effectively in the global marketplace, but it also offers industries support for solving solid-waste problems through waste audits and seminars on the latest waste-reduction techniques.

In addition, CIS operates the Tennessee Materials Exchange, which got off the ground in December 1995 and works something like a classified ad dating service for waste products, Buggeln says.

Companies are able to list materials they're trying to get rid of--such as acids, solvents, oils and waxes, plastics and rubber, textiles and leather, wood and paper, metals and metal sludges, and various chemicals--in a bulletin published three times annually.

Likewise, companies that are looking for materials that fall under any of these categories can list them in the bulletin as well.

"We get companies to list the materials they generate or are seeking, and then we step aside and let the interested companies work the specifics out between themselves," Buggeln says. "The whole exchange is based on the idea that someone, somewhere, is looking for what you're throwing out."

In using the exchange, both seller and buyer benefit from cost reduction; the seller doesn't have to pay to landfill the material or otherwise dispose of it, and the buyer pays a lower price than he or she would otherwise pay for such materials on the normal market.

The service is free to participants, although industries do indirectly help bankroll the service through a TDEC surcharge attached to landfill tipping fees.

About 280 companies are currently listing materials on the exchange. The list is sent out to interested companies on request. (It can also be accessed directly through the World Wide Web at: http://funnelweb.utcc.utk.edu/~cis/cis-swst.htm)

While TDEC and CIS are the primary EPA grant recipients, Buggeln has enlisted Paul Winistorfer, a professor in UT's Forestry Department and director of the Tennessee Forest Products Center, to provide technical expertise for the project. In particular, Winistorfer provides CIS with industry data and helps CIS interpret the information.

Buggeln and Winistorfer expect that eventually the Tennessee Forest Products Center will become the state umbrella organization for all activities related to wood products.

Meanwhile, companies looking to exchange wood waste materials will be sent to CIS, and CIS will directly interact with industry as the extension arm of UT.

To fulfill part of the project's educational goals, Buggeln and Winistorfer have organized a two-day conference scheduled for October 1997 and titled "Producing and Using Wood Wastes: Challenges and Opportunities." The conference, which will be cosponsored by the Forest Products Society, will convene in Knoxville.

"The focus for all this will be wood waste and what you do with it," Buggeln says. "We hope to catch industries' attention by saying, 'Look, it's costing you money to landfill this stuff. You can make and save money at the same time by finding someone who can use it.'"

For more information, contact Richard Buggeln, The University of Tennessee, CIS, 226 Capitol Boulevard Bldg., Suite 606, Nashville, TN 37219-1804, or call 615-532-8881.

Engineered Organism Release--An Update

In the Fall 1996 issue, InSites announced the pending release of genetically engineered organisms on the Department of Energy reservation in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The project was devised to evaluate the environmental conditions that influence microorganisms' ability to degrade contaminants present in soil.

Late in October, researchers from The University of Tennessee's (UT's) Center for Environmental Biotechnology (CEB) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) carried out the release of the organism, Pseudomonas fluorescens HK44, into six steel-lined cylinders known as soil lysimeters. The pro- ject was the first of its kind to receive approval from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The organisms were sprayed into the lysimeters on successive layers of soil that contained the contaminant naphthalene, one of several polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons present at DOE sites around the country. Because the organisms were genetically altered to produce light as they degrade naphthalene, it was easier for researchers to study their activity.

As researchers layered in the contaminated soil, they also installed various pieces of equipment to monitor soil gases, moisture, temperature, light, and other conditions that reflect or influence microbial activity.

According to CEB Director Gary Sayler, while the monitoring equipment has operated well, researchers encountered complications arising from much lower-than-expected levels of naphthalene in the soil. Project delays allowed some of the naphthalene to evaporate from the soil sample, which was mixed off site and stored in the open air six months longer than anticipated.

Organisms naturally present in the soil also played a role in degrading the contaminant, says ORNL microbiologist Robert Burlage, who serves as co-principal investigator on the project with Sayler.

Both Sayler and Burlage regard he problem as a minor setback and plan to use the lysimeters' subsurface irrigation systems to add naphthalene to the soil in a fuel-oil mix. The irrigation system is one of the many features designed into the lysimeters by Chris Cox, a professor in UT's civil and environmental engineering department.

According to Burlage, the naphthalene-oil mix will slowly release the contaminant, making it "bioavailable" to the microbes, and the lysimeters' fiber-optic cables should soon begin to register light from the organisms as they degrade the naphthalene.

For more information, contact Gary Sayler, The University of Tennessee, CEB, 676 Dabney Hall, Knoxville, TN 37996-1605, or call 865-974-8080.

Educational Projects Target Composting and Recycling

To encourage Tennessee firms to recycle various waste products, including woods, plastics, leather, and industrial solvents, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has awarded the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) a $149,000 grant through its "Jobs Through Recycling" program.

The University of Tennessee's Center for Industrial Services (CIS) will administer the grant. In fulfillment of the grant's goals of education and waste reduction, Richard Buggeln, a manager with CIS, is working with the University of Memphis to design a course curriculum for an environmental engineering degree with a specialty in compost engineering.

"Composting is a powerful tool," Buggeln says. "Not only are you diverting biodegradable material from a landfill, but you're also creating a value-added product."

Environmental engineering programs currently embody specialty areas in waste water treatment, but nothing exists for composting.

Paul Evan Davis, director of TDEC's solid waste division in Nashville, insists that such training is becoming more and more important as time goes on.

"Counties and local governments are telling us in their 10-year solid waste plans that composting is going to be a significant part of their waste-reduction strategy," Davis says.

"But they need to be properly trained, because you can't just go out and throw leaves and branches on a pile and call it a composting program."

InSites, FORUM Win Awards

InSites won a 1997 Technical Communications Award of Merit from the East Tennessee Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication (STC).

Forum for Applied Research and Public Policy, a quarterly journal published jointly by The University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, won awards, most notably the "Best of Show" award, in the 1997 STC competition for its articles, original artwork, and overall excellence.

Forum also won a Mercury Award from the International Association of the Communications Arts and Sciences.