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, e-mail Constance Griffith cbgriffith@utk.edu.
Protecting
the Southeast’s Liquid Assets: The Southeast is endowed with
abundant water, but the region is not immune from conflicts . . . By
David Brill. Green
Acres: TRDP and partners determine just how much of the Oak Ridge Reservation
is actually contaminated by studying its history as a nuclear research facility.
By Laurie Varma. Tennessee’s
New Strategic Plan: Protects Cultural, Natural Resources. By
Laurie Varma Talking
on Water: In August, specialists met in Chattanooga and shared their
views on the current and future health of southeastern water resources.
By Laurie Varma. CEB
Wins Second Research Award From Dow. By Laurie Varma Small
Towns, Big Plans: WMREI researchers help Tennessee’s rural communities
plan for a smart future. By Laurie Varma.
Protecting the Southeast’s Liquid Assets
The Southeast is endowed with abundant water, but the region is not immune from conflicts that spring from competing uses and flow across jurisdictional boundaries.
By David Brill
August is a notoriously dry month in Tennessee, but that did little to dissuade more than 180 regional water specialists and others from convening to discuss the future of one of the Southeast's most abundant but increasingly contentious natural resources.
Population growth, interstate conflicts over allocation, competition between urban and rural users, threats to instream quality caused by water withdrawals, and the interrelationship between water quality and quantity shaped the context for "Southeast Water Resources: Management and Supply."
The symposium convened in Chattanooga August 24-26. The University of Tennessee's (UT) Energy, Environment and Resources Center (EERC) organized the event, which was co-sponsored by eight regional and national organizations involved with water resource management and supply, including the Tennessee
Valley Authority, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Appalachian Regional Commission, and UT’s Water Resources Research Center. (For information on individual case studies and other symposium presentations, see "Talking on Water," page 4.)
Abundant water provides the basis for agriculture, transportation, energy production, and recreation in the Southeast, but in recent years, the region has begun to experience problems over water use and supply that to some extent parallel those experienced in the arid American West, where water allocation issues have been a source of conflict for more than a century.
"Many water problems that have occurred in other parts of the United States are finally starting to emerge as serious constraints on our lifestyle and future here in the Southeast," says symposium coordinator David Feldman, a senior research scientist with the EERC.
According to Feldman, southeastern water conflicts share four characteristics:
participation instead of command and control methods that can alienate some
constituencies. To illustrate these characteristics, Feldman points to two case studies presented at
the conference. The first reflects growing interstate cooperation; the second, interstate
conflict. Georgia, Alabama, and Florida, linked by the Apalachicola/Chattahoochee/Flint river
system, together launched a water resource study in 1992 and are developing a basin-wide
plan for managing the shared resource. The collaboration grew from controversy that began
in the 1980s when Atlanta, which was experiencing dramatic population growth, revealed
plans to divert water from the Chattahoochee River to supply its needs. Alabama and Florida, fearing that Atlanta's diversion of water from the river would
cause downstream impacts, opposed the move. Rather than pursue a contentious legal battle
in the courts—a process that Alabama initially began—the three states, in
conjunction with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is responsible for managing most
of the basin’s major reservoirs, agreed to work together in shaping an equitable
solution. This spirit of cooperation eluded North Carolina and Virginia in their battle over the
future of Lake Gaston, a reservoir that sits near the shared border between the two
states. Virginia Beach, Virginia, which Feldman characterizes as "the fastest growing
city in one of the fastest growing states in the nation," is without its own potable
water source and launched plans to engineer a 76-mile pipeline to divert water from Lake
Gaston. Though the lake is situated in Virginia, its waters spill into North Carolina. North Carolina attempted to block construction of the pipeline, but following a 15-year
legal battle, during which construction of the pipeline continued, Virginia received all
the necessary legal permits. Despite the fact that it lost the battle to stop the
pipeline, however, North Carolina’s arguments carry an important message. The state
was concerned with the prospects for future water withdrawals and with the precedent of
diversions without a limit on volume. As Feldman points out, here are two cases involving similar jurisdictional issues with
two very different solutions, one contentious—and costly—the other more
cooperative but whose permanent outcome remains uncertain. "It cost Virginia Beach about $150 million to complete the Lake Gaston project,
and roughly 7 percent of the cost was spent on litigation," says Feldman.
"Meanwhile, Alabama, Florida, and Georgia have, in settling their disputes, spent
about $4 million over a similar period of time, pursuing comparable research and support
studies and taking a more cooperative tack. On a simple cost-benefit basis, it’s
clear which is the better solution." Other case studies presented at the symposium examined water resource challenges in
Texas, southern Florida, and northern Georgia. During the symposium's second day, the program shifted from review of case studies to
group problem solving. Participants were assigned to one of six "issues
assemblies" based on their expertise and asked to identify problems and information
needs; characterize the policy environment surrounding the issue; and formulate
recommendations for local, regional, and national decision makers. (The policy
recommendations emerging from the six issues assemblies will be featured in an upcoming
issue of InSites.) These recommendations will form the centerpiece for a follow-up conference scheduled
for Atlanta next fall that will convene 350-400 local, state, and national policymakers
and resource managers. "Our primary goal in organizing the initial symposium was to explore various
water-related conflicts in the Southeast and develop an effective regional approach
to managing this resource," says Feldman. "The symposium marked the
first step in a long-term process aimed at shaping sustainable policies that
are environmentally beneficial and fair to current and future generations."
1
For more information: Contact David Feldman, EERC, The University of Tennessee, 311 Conference Center Building, Knoxville, TN 37996-4134, or call 865-974-4086.
Green Acres: TRDP and partners determine just how much of the Oak Ridge Reservation is actually contaminated by studying its history as a nuclear research facility. By Laurie Varma.
Staff with the Technology Research and Development Program (TRDP), an affiliate of the University of Tennessee’s Waste Management Research and Education Institute, have discovered that a little detective work can save the government—and taxpayers—large sums of money in Superfund surveillance, cleanup, and maintenance costs.
They’ve spent nearly three years identifying parcels of land on the Oak Ridge Reservation (ORR) that have not been contaminated by 50 years of nuclear weapons research involving hazardous materials.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), built on the ORR, was established in the Tennessee Valley in 1943 to carry out pilot production and separation of plutonium for the World War II-era Manhattan Project. Although weapons research at ORNL has ceased, current activities such as weapons and facility dismantling and fusion research continue to create radioactive waste.
If It Ain’t Broke...
In 1989 the 35,000-acre ORR was placed on the National Priorities List (NPL) and declared a Superfund site, requiring the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to remediate, or clean up, the solid, hazardous, and mixed waste contaminating the reservation’s soil, water, and air. Rather than surveying the land for contaminated parcels at that time, government officials placed the entire ORR on the NPL.
David Kendall works for Bechtel Jacobs, Inc., one of TRDP’s partners, and manages the NPL Footprint Reduction project. "We believed that about 85 percent of the land was not contaminated, and the project was aimed at investigating that," he says. "To date, we’ve been able to delete approximately 20,000 acres from the NPL."
That’s a significant outcome, says Kendall, because these findings will allow DOE to focus remediation efforts more precisely, avoiding wasted time and money, and land once thought to be contaminated could be freed up for other uses.
The project is a multidisciplinary effort among TRDP; Bechtel Jacobs; the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC); Jacobs Environmental Management (EM) Team; UT’s Energy, Environment and Resources Center (EERC); and Lockheed Martin’s Energy Research and Energy Systems divisions. Experts from these organizations who specialize in the areas of contamination, geology and soil, forestry, remote-sensing techniques, surface hydrology, nuclear science, and ORNL history have worked together to investigate the health of ORR land.
Search for Clues
TRDP staff members Mary Buckner and Wayne Chance coordinate the partners’ activities and prepare composite data maps used to direct field investigations. Members of the Jacobs EM Team and TDEC conduct field investigations of suspicious-looking sites and provide maintenance for areas of low-level contamination that do not qualify for remediation. Lockheed Martin assists with permitting and field investigations, and Bechtel Jacobs handles remediation of the contaminated parcels of land. The EERC provides technical support for Bechtel Jacobs’ risk-assessment, mapping, and remote-sensing efforts.
While Kendall says it’s been gratifying to strike much of the ORR from the NPL, the path TRDP and its partners have taken is what makes their story so interesting. To investigate the status of ORR land and track down sources of contamination, they’ve sifted through years of documentation and data and interviewed many ORNL employees, some of whom spent their entire careers in Oak Ridge.
DOE is responsible for cleaning up contamination on the ORR in accordance with
the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA),
which involves characterizing the history and current health of lands declared
Superfund sites. The act requires that five tasks be completed:
Looking Back toward the Future
To recreate the land’s history, TRDP and its partners reviewed old federal documents, land deeds from as far back as the 1800s, and aerial photographs dating from the 1940s. "These documents told us what activities had taken place here and helped us find sites that needed a closer look," says Kendall. He points out that the team was responsible for reporting not only government activities that have degraded the environment but also activities conducted by private individuals before the land was sold to the government.
For example, historical documents reveal where farms and filling stations were located before the federal government established the ORR. The partners investigated former farm sites for pesticide contamination and filling station sites for contamination from fuel tanks.
TRDP and its partners also reviewed remote-sensing data taken over the past two decades. Color infrared photography reveals variations in vegetation and surface moisture, which can indicate natural disturbances or stress from contamination. Gamma radiation data show both naturally occurring and human-created terrestrial gamma emissions. Multispectral imagery analyzes reflected and emitted energy to indicate vegetative stress. Thermal imagery enables analysis of surface temperature for signs of buried magnetic objects and human disturbances. Vertical magnetic gradient data identify buried objects and waste dumps up to 100 feet below the ground.
"The ORR is probably one of the most surveyed sites in the world. Almost every piece of sensing equipment invented has been used here," Kendall says. "This is the first time so many types of data were put together to form a complete profile of the ORR’s history and features."
The project partners reviewed the data, land-use documentation, and photographic evidence to identify areas that may have become contaminated from private or federal government activities and to determine the probable nature and source of contamination. For example, sites with a dimpled ground surface were flagged for field investigation, since an uneven surface might indicate the presence of a pit containing hazardous waste.
TRDP compiled all the investigative data on composite maps. Next the partners interviewed people who had been involved with the ORR throughout its history, in an attempt to provide explanations for suspicious-looking sites. Says Kendall, "When we found a site with a high magnetic reading, for example, we’d talk to the forestry staff to find out if old fuel drums or other metal objects had ever been buried there."
Critical Memories
Gathering information from "old-timers" was sometimes challenging, says Kendall. "Long-time employees remembered past activities well, but we often got directions to a site like ‘go down to the stump and turn onto a dirt path, follow the road till you see a big oak tree; that’s where we buried whatever it was.’ The path and the trees might not even be there anymore because so much of the area has become reforested."
Kendall says the partners also consulted experts to find out whether land-use practices evidenced by land deeds and aerial photography could have contaminated a site. "For example," he says, "when an old deed or photo showed us that a site had once been used as an orchard, we asked our experts whether farmers here used DDT at that time."
Once the partners characterized sites with data, maps, and interviews, members of the Jacobs EM Team and TDEC went out into the field to locate remaining sites, to ascertain whether they were contaminated, and to verify the contamination source. "It’s been a thorough, exhaustive process," says Kendall. "It’s not likely that any ground contamination escaped us." As expected, contamination was found only in the vicinity of the ORNL, K-25, and Y-12 facilities.
Other agencies are surveying the ORR for surface and groundwater contamination. Kendall says if that project is as successful as the ground review, much of the ORR could be available in the future for nongovernmental use. "The ORR includes some prime development property—parcels of land that are accessible to railroads, utilities, and highways—but it’s also become an informal breeding ground for animal species that were becoming rare," he says. "The land should be freed up for the wisest alternative uses."
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For more information: Contact David Kendall, TRDP, The University of Tennessee, 685C Emory Valley Road, Oak Ridge, TN 37830, or call 865-481-6004.
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Tennessee’s New Strategic Plan: Protects Cultural, Natural Resources
The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) is formulating a new strategic plan to protect the long-term stability of the state’s natural and cultural resources, as well as ensure a high quality of life for Tennessee residents. The new plan will guard air, land, and water quality throughout the state; promote the preservation of natural and cultural resources; and provide for a variety of recreational opportunities.
TDEC’s plan is intended to move the state toward a future where parks, natural areas, communities, industries, and farms become exemplary models of environmental stewardship and prosperity.
All of TDEC’s divisions—State Parks, Conservation, and Environment—have combined efforts to develop a draft of the four-year strategic plan, which was conceptualized as part of a 12-year planning horizon. The plan will serve as a road map for TDEC’s future and provide a foundation for each division’s annual plan.
TDEC’s draft strategic plan was made available in early November on the World Wide Web (http://www.state.tn.us/environment/tdecplan.htm). State Parks and Environmental Assistance Center offices throughout the state will have review copies onsite; hard copies and disk copies can be requested. The agency, which encourages public input in the planning process, hosted two statewide teleconferences in early December.
—Laurie Varma
Talking on Water: In August, specialists met in Chattanooga and shared their views on the current and future health of southeastern water resources. By Laurie Varma.
Water resources in the southeastern United States are being managed more effectively than in the past, but many challenges lie ahead—including conflicts over allocation, competition between urban and rural users, and threats to instream quality—and we would do well to heed lessons learned in the western United States.
This message formed the cornerstone of "Southeast Water Resources: Management and Supply," held in Chattanooga this past August. Specialists involved in water-related issues presented their views at the conference.
U.S. Geological Survey representative Wayne Solley says freshwater withdrawals in the Southeast region have held constant over the 1980s and 1990s while the region’s population grew. He points to this leveling off as a signal that water resource management has been successful. "It also shows us that water use does respond to economic and regulatory factors and that the general public has an enhanced awareness of water resources and conservation issues," Solley says.
However, with regard to the future, the consensus among symposium participants is clear: water management efforts must balance environmental protection with municipal, industrial, agricultural, and recreational demands on the water supply, and conflicts between these users pose the greatest threat to water quality and quantity.
Although "water rich" in comparison to other regions, the Tennessee Valley is experiencing increased demands on its water resources as upstream and downstream users are vying for ever-larger portions of a fixed-resource pie.
Water management in the valley represents a complex challenge, says Janet Herrin, vice president of water management for the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). "We operate TVA’s dams, locks, and power plants as an integrated system for the common good of a seven-state region," she says. "Our resource management responsibilities are coordinated around a single ecosystem that crosses city, county, and state boundaries."
Rivers all over the Southeast are beginning to suffer from the effects of multiple uses. Flowing through two Tennessee counties and four in Georgia, and serving as a headwater for the Mobile River system, the Conasauga River is part of one of the most species-rich regions in North America. The Conasauga’s headwaters are protected because they come within the boundaries of the Cherokee and Chattahoochee national forests, but farmers, residents, and industries all depend on the river as a source of water. These demands have compromised water quality downstream.
"The lower reaches of the Conasauga have been highly impacted by industry and urban development," says George Benz, director of the Southeast Aquatic Research Institute (SARI). "Recovery of this region to its natural state appears impossible, so efforts are being focused on the middle and upper reaches to protect water quality and aquatic habitat from nonpoint source pollution, especially sediment, nutrients, and toxic chemicals."
Occasionally, water resource users in the Southeast become locked in conflict over access and availability.
According to Keith Graham of the Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile District, conflicts between Georgia, Alabama, and Florida over water supply go back to the late 1800s, flared up in the 1980s, and have continued into the 1990s.
A series of droughts in the 1980s caused the states to reassess their existing water supply strategies and explore new ones, and conflict became centered on the ways the Appalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint (ACF) and the Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa (ACT) river basins would be used by the three states. After Alabama filed suit over Georgia’s proposed policy changes, the three states began to work in conjunction with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to negotiate the terms of water allocations for each state.
The states also worked with the Corps and other federal agencies to gather technical information on water demand, water availability, and management for the ACF and ACT river basins. All these efforts culminated in the three states signing into law the ACF and ACT compacts, which govern water allocation and conflict resolution.
"Although a remarkable amount has been accomplished in the last eight years," says Graham, "negotiations are often contentious, and we still have the toughest part ahead of us—fully developing and agreeing on water allocation formulas."
Doug Kenney, on staff at the University of Colorado’s Natural Resources Law Center, believes the Southeast would benefit from western states’ experiences with developing municipal capabilities to supply water to arid and semi-arid regions. He says that although cotton fields flourish in the deserts of Arizona and cities along the Rockies have seen unprecedented growth—all with only rare water shortages—the environmental and social costs of such aggressive programs have been staggering.
"This region has seen a dramatic loss of riparian areas, and many small communities have been dewatered in favor of large boom towns," Kenney says. "We’re finding that antiquated institutional arrangements are proving poorly equipped to pursue modern goals of water conservation, community stability, and environmental restoration."
Kenney urges Southeast decision-makers to address water management from a regional and holistic perspective, to introduce environmental sensitivity into water programs, and to utilize market incentives and technologies in a manner that promotes sustainability.
Some agencies responsible for water resource management have applied state-of-the-art technology to solve water woes.
For example, under the North Carolina Water and Sewer Project, the Rural Development Council and Rural Economic Development Center created the state’s first comprehensive, accurate data set pertaining to water and sewer locations and needs.
"North Carolina is ranked third in the number of rural households without indoor plumbing, and 70 percent of our sewer systems were old and leaking, so we knew the state had serious water and sewer problems," says Billy Ray Hall of the Rural Economic Development Center. "We also lacked a clear picture of where and how severe the problems were."
To help solve these information and infrastructure problems, the two agencies worked together to gather data on water and sewer conditions throughout the state and to use the data to create a geographic information system (GIS) data set. To accomplish this task, they inventoried existing public community water and sewer systems and assessed needs over the next two decades.
"Using our data set, decision makers will be able to carry out strategic planning and review capital improvement needs from an informed and accurate perspective," Hall says. The data set, part of North Carolina’s GIS, has already contributed to more productive debate about the state’s water and sewer needs.
Other agencies are collaborating to balance the needs of various users.
The Central and Southern Florida Project and Review Study is a collaborative effort of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; the South Florida Water Management District; and several other federal, state, local, and tribal agencies and organizations. Their efforts have focused on providing flood control; water supply for residences, industry, and Everglades National Park; and navigation and protection for the region’s natural ecosystem, including fish and wildlife. According to Tom Teets of the South Florida Water Management District, these partners have generated alternative plans for balancing environmental and development concerns while encouraging public participation and debate.
"Because the sources of nonpoint source pollution are varied, sometimes difficult to pinpoint, and associated with land management practices," says SARI’s director Benz, "the most effective method of achieving water quality and protecting habitat involves working together." Stakeholders in the Conasauga River watershed have joined forces as the Conasauga River Alliance.
CALFED is an organization formed by federal and state agencies to develop a common approach to decades-long water availability problems in California. According to William Wade, a specialist involved in the project, the agencies have long engaged in a turf battle over who would exert control and impose solutions. "Through CALFED’s collaborative strategy, these entities have stopped blaming each other and have committed to working together to fix real problems," Wade says.
TVA’s Janet Herrin says the agency’s Clean Water Initiative has effectively managed competition for water resources by building partnerships and engaging the public and industries in resource protection and improvement. Says Herrin, "This watershed-based, community-driven program helps communities develop cooperative projects, secure technical and financial resources, and achieve local goals for watershed improvement by bringing stakeholders together."
Although data indicate the Southeast’s water resources are in good standing, increased competition and unhealthy land management practices by industry and others highlight the need for focused attention on water quality and more consistent information on water use as planners, managers, and elected officials continue to wrestle with water management problems facing this region into the next century. l
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For more information: Contact David Feldman, EERC, The University of Tennessee, 311 Conference Center Building, Knoxville, TN 37996-4134, or call 865-974-4086.
CEB Wins Second Research Award From Dow
This past June, the Center for Environmental Biotechnology (CEB) received a $25,000 gift from the Dow Chemical Company Foundation to support the center’s work in human health and environmental sciences.
CEB received the funds from the foundation’s SPHERE (Supporting Public Health and Environmental Research Efforts) program, which aims to foster understanding within the nonindustrial community of the many health and environmental issues facing the chemical industry.
"The work we do here at CEB ties into the foundation’s mission because both organizations are interested in learning about the fate of synthetic chemicals in the environment," says CEB director Gary Sayler. "For example, we look at issues such as the life expectancy of chemicals in the environment and whether we need to be concerned about the effects of certain chemicals on people and the environment."
The Dow Foundation’s SPHERE program recognizes nonindustrial research institutions that are conducting leading-edge research in health, safety, and the environment. The foundation was created in 1979 to fund science programs at secondary schools; in 1996 its mission was broadened to include science, engineering, and business programs at universities. Dow Chemical Company supplies chemicals, plastics, energy, and agricultural products; consumer goods; and environmental services worldwide.
—Laurie Varma
Small Towns, Big Plans: WMREI researchers help Tennessee’s rural communities plan for a smart future. By Laurie Varma.
Our major cities may suffer from a multitude of easily recognized problems, but rural towns and counties across Tennessee and around the country are quietly struggling through a growing list of their own difficulties.
Mary English and Jean Peretz, researchers with the University of Tennessee’s Waste Management Research and Education Institute (WMREI), and Melissa Manderschied, a graduate research assistant from the School of Planning, contend that these small-town problems often go unnoticed. Meanwhile, the researchers say, these communities boast fewer resources, less access to information, and fewer specialized, trained staff members than do such large cities as Atlanta and Seattle (see "The Forecast Is Clear When You Plan Ahead," InSites, Spring 1998, for background on the project and small-town smart-growth issues).
Meeting Needs, Guiding Growth
In August, the researchers released a draft guide aimed at meeting the planning needs of rural communities throughout Tennessee. The draft guide binds together a year’s worth of research into existing smart-growth planning programs across the country, computer-based and "low-tech" tools for planning, and information sources that communities can consult as they progress through their planning processes. The guide also includes case studies of two Tennessee communities—Blount County and the town of White House—that have pursued innovative planning processes.
The 120-page draft guide begins by defining smart growth and showing how the concept relates to sustainable development and traditional planning. The guide then launches into a detailed discussion of leadership models that communities can choose to direct their planning processes. For example, a community might select the top-down model in which legislators, government agencies, and influential parties (such as members of a chamber of commerce or real estate developers) make key planning and infrastructure decisions. Another community might choose the "come one, come all" model, through which people at all levels of the community work together in an inclusive and nonhierarchical way, to plan for the future.
The guide walks the reader through the five stages of the smart-growth planning process—describing how a community can identify values and set goals; gather, integrate, and forecast information; develop and assess options; make decisions; and monitor changes in its economic, social, and environmental health.
The guide also discusses how computer-based tools can be used as aids to a planning process. Geographic information systems (GISs), for example, can be used to monitor change. These computer-based programs simultaneously organize and graphically display data representing multiple dimensions of sustainability such as job growth rates, illiteracy rates, and lead content in soils. To be included in the draft guide, GISs had to be PC-based and adaptable to the local level, and they had to be multi-faceted, incorporating environmental, economic, and social factors.
Beyond that, Peretz says, it is important to consider cost, data requirements, and ease of use. "We must remember that nonurban communities may not have sophisticated computer equipment or technical staff available," she says.
"Low-tech" sustainability indicators are trends or conditions within a community that can be tracked over time to determine, for example, whether water quality and recycling rates are improving, getting worse, or staying the same. Indicators allow communities to see where they stand in relation to their goals.
The guide also includes the research team’s recommended 12-step sequence for smart-growth visioning and planning; references to relevant books, articles, and manuals; and addresses for nonprofit organizations, government agencies, and Web sites communities can use during the smart-growth planning process.
Bridging the Gap
The guide, which is aimed at planners and other community officials, citizens involved in smart-growth planning, and relevant public agencies, is "nonjudgmental and nonprescriptive," says English. She stresses the importance of allowing planners to find tools and establish planning processes that work for their communities.
Rural towns and counties may not succeed if they imitate Atlanta’s planning process, for example, because their issues are different and they have different resources. "Instead of advocating a particular formula," English adds, "we want to provide an array of possible tactics that communities can put together themselves to suit their unique needs."
Peretz and English note how slanted the existing literature is toward the planning experiences of richer, more urban communities.
"Not much has been written about efforts in communities of 50,000 or less," says English. "They have political and social contexts vastly different from those of larger areas, which affects planning needs. Our guide provides small towns and counties with hard-to-find information that is geared specifically toward them."
In addition to providing a single planning volume aimed at meeting the needs of rural communities, their planning guide fills another gap in the literature.
Says English, "Books and articles tend to focus on helping communities implement change; our work and the guide are about what should come before that—envisioning an economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable future and planning the steps that will move the community toward its goals." The guide will be finalized in the next couple of months.
Test Run
The team’s next step—a pilot project aimed at assisting a Tennessee town or county in conducting smart-growth planning—will put some of the concepts in their guide to the test."We’ll be applying aspects of the guide to a real situation," says Peretz. "All this might look good on paper, but once we use the guide to help an actual community, we’ll know how to make the guide more helpful to other users." The pilot is expected to start in late 1998 and to last about a year.
In response to a growth policy law enacted in May 1998 under Tennessee Senate Bill 3278, counties and municipalities in Tennessee are required to establish committees of public officials and representatives from utilities, soil conservation and education agencies, and chambers of commerce to recommend plans for urban growth, planned growth, and rural areas within their boundaries. The team hopes the state’s committees will use the guide as they develop their recommended plans.
It is imperative, say the researchers, that rural areas understand the importance of planning for the future. "These communities, perhaps most of all, need to take the time to envision their sustainable futures and to plan deliberately, because the choices they make will affect the entire country,"says English.
The draft guide is available for downloading from the Internet at http://eerc.ra.utk.edu/smart.htm.
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For more information: Contact Mary English, WMREI, The University of Tennessee, 311 Conference Center Building, Knoxville, TN 37996-4134, or call 865-974-3825.
Projects. The Tennessee Solid Waste Reduction Task Force recently submitted its report with 14 recommendations for boosting waste reduction statewide. EERC Executive Director Jack Barkenbus chaired the government-appointed Task Force. One of the key recommendations of the task force is a phased-in ban on the landfilling of yard waste. These measures, if approved by the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, will be part of a package of changes accompanying the reauthorization of Tennessee’s Solid Waste Management Act.
Senior Research Scientist Jack Ranney’s new project for the Waste Management Research and Education Institute, "Policies on Small Stream Sustainability in Tennessee," seeks to identify policy adjustments that will improve the sustainability and quality of small streams. Ruth Anne Hanahan, senior research assistant with the EERC’s Water Resources Research Center, and Laura Wilkes from UT’s School of Planning are also involved in the project. Ranney serves as conference chair for the 9th annual Southern Appalachian Man and Biosphere Conference.
International News. Gary Davis, director of the EERC’s Center for Clean Products and Clean Technologies (CCPCT), recently presented a series of lectures and reviewed papers for master’s candidates in clean production at Sweden’s University of Lund International Institute of Industrial Environmental Economics. While in Sweden, Davis presented "Is There a Broad Principle of EPR?" at a two-day meeting on extended producer responsibility (EPR). Davis also participated in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development international workshop, Extended Producer Responsibility: Lifting Barriers to EPR Approaches, in Helsinki, Finland.
Conferences. UT recently hosted the inaugural Southern Automotive Manufacturing Conference and Exposition in Nashville, Tennessee. Gary Davis served as co-organizer of the event, which was sponsored by the Society of Automotive Engineers. CCPCT Senior Research Associate Jack Geibig presented "Supplier Partnerships for Environmental Improvements" in a session chaired by Davis. Kerry Kelly, also a senior research associate with CCPCT, presented "Environmental Evaluation of Molding Exterior Body Panels in Color" in a session chaired by Geibig. CCPCT Research Associate Rajive Dhingra presented "An Environmentally Conscious Decision Support System for the Automotive Industry," and Davis presented "Tools for Environmental Design: The Life Cycle Design Tool Kit."
In September, CCPCT Senior Research Associate Maria Socolof attended the Gravure Association of America (GAA) Environmental Council meeting in San Antonio, Texas, to present a proposed focus area for the CCPCT’s Gravure Printing Project, which is funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Design for the Environment Program. The CCPCT proposes to design and
field-test a chiller system for ink reservoirs that will reduce emissions and increase print quality.