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.
Table of Contents
The
Smell of Sustainabiltiy Sugar
Rush University
Program Champions Planet Earth: If the Earth were only a few
feet in diameter, floating a few feet above a field somewhere, people
would come from everywhere to marvel at it. (Author unknown) Efficiency Technique
Hews New Niche Staff
Citings
An international workshop examines ways of turning farm manure into an economic asset rather than an liability.
By Laurie Varma
Throughout U.S. history, industries have weathered many changes—in operations, management practices, and regulations. Consider, for instance, the sweeping changes that have affected manufacturing in this country. Farming, like manufacturing, has faced a welter of challenges over recent decades, including urban encroachment on rural land, competition from abroad, and emerging environmental concerns, among them how best to handle the billions of tons of farm manure produced each year in the United States.
This past March, the Joint Institute for Energy and Environment (JIEE) convened its first Workshop on Farm Animal Wastes. JIEE is a consortium comprising the University of Tennessee (UT), Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the Tennessee Valley Authority. The organization is basedat UT.
The meeting focused on formulating ways to reduce the environmental impacts of farm animal manure. In particular, workshop participants—which included nearly 60 representatives of federal and state government, federal research laboratories, universities, private industry, and nonprofit organizations from across the United States and Japan—sought ways to develop value-added products from farm waste and to devise improved practices for managing this inevitable by-product of farming operations.
“Many people
are working to solve this problem, but they aren’t getting together in a forum
that enables them to understand more than the subset of issues on which they
focus,” says John Sheffield, JIEE’s executive director. “Our goal for the
workshop was to get these people in one place for discussions, to engage
pertinent government agencies, and to set the stage for producing a document
that summarizes possible solutions to the problems associated with farm animal
waste.”
Burgeoning Heap
Animal manure has traditionally been “reused” on farms to fertilize crop fields, incinerated, or dumped into water bodies. As large corporate farms have sprung up and as herd sizes for dairy and beef cattle, poultry, and hogs have grown, however, the amount of animal waste that farms must handle has increased to staggering proportions. In 1997, for instance, U.S. annual production of turkeys topped 292 million birds; chickens for eggs, 297 million; dairy and beef cattle, 101 million; hogs and pigs, 56 million; and chickens for meat, 7 billion. Together, these animals generate 1.4 billion tons of liquid and solid manure each year.
The trend toward larger farms has triggered environmental, economic, and social concerns among farmers, their neighbors, regulators, and citizens. A major problem is that co-ops that sell animal feed are often situated far from animal operations, so recycling of manure through these facilities is not always practical.
As a consequence, animal wastes are overloading groundwater, surface water, and soils with nitrogen and phosphorus. Methane, a by-product of decomposing manure, contributes to greenhouse gases and has 22 times the negative effects of carbon dioxide. That means 1 ton of methane equals 22 tons of carbon dioxide, so methane is far more problematic in terms of greenhouse gases. Today’s farming practices, however, are focusing more and more on controlling the emissions of this gas.
In addition to these environmental problems, noxious ammonia odors are degrading farm neighbors’ quality of life, more virulent bacterial strains such as E. coli and salmonella are developing, and pathogens like pfiesteria and cryptosporidium are on the rise. Independent farmers face an increasing financial burden in contending with these environmental problems, and American farms must now compete with European and South American producers, who may not operate under the same high costs or strict environmental regulations. As a result, U.S. farmers may be losing their competitive edge.
Problems in eastern North Carolina’s hog-farming region are among the most notorious, owing to a recent environmental accident. In 1995, an eight-acre lagoon burst, sending 22 million gallons of liquid and solid hog waste—a quantity twice the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska—into the New River. The spill has been associated with degraded stream quality, polluted municipal water supplies, and devastating fish kills throughout the eastern part of the state.
Today other major farming states, among them Maryland, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Florida, and Illinois, are also seeking new ways of dealing with an age-old problem. The more progressive waste management technologies currently used in these states and others involve collecting waste and pumping it into storage tanks or lagoons, processing it to separate liquids from solids, and using or selling each component as value-added products.
Farms often use anaerobic digestion in storage tanks or
lagoons to break down wastes and reduce odor. Anaerobic digestion is a
biological process that involves decomposition of waste, conversion of the
decomposed waste to organic acids, and conversion of the acids to methane gas.
Following this process, liquid waste is often sprayed on crop fields as
fertilizer, and solid waste can be dried and used for fuel. Methane gas
harvested from tanks or lagoons can be used to produce electricity for farm
operations and utilities.
Probing for New Ideas
Today’s research seeks to determine how waste nutrients and gases interact with the environment. Such understanding will provide a scientific foundation for innovative alternatives to environmentally destructive farming products and practices. State and federal programs, such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service and the Environmental Protection Agency’s AgStar Program, provide, among other things, grant money to researchers who examine opportunities for producing energy from farm waste. These programs also train farmers to install and operate state-of-the-art waste management systems.
JIEE’s workshop explored a number of concepts essential to sustainable management of farm animal waste. Such concepts promote increased awareness of the environmental effects of nutrients and other pollutants and efforts to reduce them; development of value-added products from waste, including methane gas and fertilizers; demonstration and certification of new technologies, which helps reduce farmers’ financial risks from implementing such measures; and increased emphasis on recycling manure.
Workshop participants divided into small discussion groups to examine how research could solve problems associated with various practices on the modern farm. Members of the breakout group on utilities and energy production suggested that deregulated utilities investigate farm animal waste and other paths to “green” energy. By partnering with farmers, who would supply the methane, utilities could add methane-based energy to their offerings and help reduce greenhouse gases. Methane can also be used to power fuel cells, an emerging battery-like energy alternative that uses chemicals to produce electricity. Although most are run on hydrogen, research is exploring use of methane harvested from farm animal waste to power these devices.
To support development of methane-based energy technologies, utilities will need to integrate methane transportation into existing pipeline systems and educate the public on the benefits of green energy. Federal and state governments must also loosen current zoning and other regulations that restrict the amount of energy farms can produce and provide tax credits and other incentives for increased production.
Closed-loop Farming
A breakout group on animal production advocated a closed-loop farming approach in which wastes are cycled back into the production system. In this kind of system, a farmer would raise herds; their wastes would be used as crop fertilizer and for electricity on the farm; the farmer would build buffer zones to reduce the amount of wastes leaching into nearby streams; and wastes would be converted to energy, building materials, and fertilizers for off-farm sale.
The group also stressed the potential for green marketing and labeling so that the extra costs associated with raising animals via more environmentally benign methods would be borne by consumers, not farmers. However, a slow flow of information and technology, along with the fact that regulations for animal and feed crop production vary from state to state, might hamper the move to green animal production.
Members of the breakout group on crop production suggested that agricultural researchers develop animal feed crops that contain lower levels of phosphorus or that have increased ability to take phosphorus up into their roots, so that less phosphorus will reach groundwater and surface water. Crops can also be used as part of buffer zones and engineered wetlands designed to protect water quality.
Another group explored how the growth of global markets and production is affecting the U.S. farming industry. Challenges include the diversity of animal and crop production practices around the world, increasing demand for meat products from developing nations, economic security for farmers in the face of large farming companies shifting their operations abroad, increasing transportation costs, and pollution.
The group that discussed nutrient removal identified the key problem behind agricultural nutrients: farmers apply nutrient-laden fertilizers to crop land, feed nutrient-laden crops to animals, and then apply nutrient-laden manure to crop land—in a cycle that allows nutrients in soil and water to accumulate quickly to dangerous levels.
Solutions could include “back-end” measures such as use of heavy metals in waste lagoons to capture nutrients until they can be removed and “front-end” measures such as use of feed crops with lower nutrient content or higher uptake abilities. Group members suggested reviving a regional farming system, or creating agricultural parks, in which crop farmers supply feed to animal farmers, who return manure to crop farmers for use as fertilizer.
“These discussions were vital to two conference goals,”
says Sheffield. “First, we started amassing solutions for a document on
opportunities in farm animal waste management, and second, the breakout-groups
and their reports to the full conference helped us inform people with divergent
expertise of the many environmental, economic, and social aspects of the
issue.”
Farming the Future
Sheffield hopes the United States will take pointers from successful projects both at home and abroad. For example, the conference highlighted successful farm waste management in an agri-cutural village in China. The village uses underground pits to collect human, hog, and chicken waste. Methane gas from the pits is pumped directly from farms into homes for cooking, heating, and lights. Wastewater is used for raising fish or irrigation on orange fields and rice paddies. Today, the city makes $400,000 in revenue from biogas and the liquid and solid components of waste.
Despite its leadership in other realms, the United States trails some countries in application of practices that reduce environmental damage from the front end, partly because of our vast landmass and abundant resources.
“My impression is that the United States is not in a real resource crunch like other regions and countries are,” says Sheffield. “For example, government involvement in solving environmental problems is much stronger in Europe, and countries there believe in heading off problems rather than waiting to react once the problems have escalated.”
Sheffield believes the conference marked an important step in helping the United States assess its present position and close the gap with Europe and parts of Asia.
“We brought people together who would not ordinarily
interact, and we got government involved in discussions,” he says. “We
highlighted real opportunities and challenges and called for increased
demonstrations of new technologies so that farmers don’t have to invest in
ideas that don’t work."
***
Contact John Sheffield, The University of Tennessee, Joint Institute for Energy and Environment, 314 Conference Center Building, Knoxville, TN 37996-4134, or call 865-974-9224.
Tiny computer chips equipped with living, light-emitting organisms and implanted in the body may make life easier for diabetics.
By Elise LeQuire
For the diabetic, knowing the exact amount of glucose in the bloodstream is crucial. But the dreaded routine of drawing blood with a sharp needle, testing glucose levels with a portable kit, and injecting insulin means the diabetic is tethered to a variety of intrusive devices.
Researchers at the University of Tennessee’s Center for Environmental Biotechnology (CEB), the technological arm of UT’s Waste Management Research and Education Institute, hope to eliminate the need for needles and test kits by making a small, implantable device that can detect glucose in the bloodstream and constantly relay that information to a monitor.
Bruce Applegate and Steven Ripp, senior research associates at CEB, are creating a new bioluminescent reporter, a genetically engineered organism that responds to the presence of a target substance—in this case, glucose—by emitting light. This living organism will be attached to a tiny silicon chip that can be implanted in the bloodstream. The chip picks up the signal from the light-emitting organism and transmits it to a monitor, allowing continuous, accurate monitoring of glucose levels.
While bioluminescent reporters made from bacteria are used
to monitor a variety of environmental pollutants, bacterial reporters as they
are now constructed can’t function in the human body. “The bacteria survive,
but the bioluminescent reaction doesn’t function at body temperature,” Ripp
says. Applegate and Ripp will fuse bacterial genes with genes of a higher order
found in plants, animals, and humans, to produce a more robust organism that is
also sensitive to the target substance. The two-year feasibility study is funded
by the National Institutes of Health.
Small is Beautiful
Biosensors that responded to glucose by emitting light had been constructed previously, but they had to transmit the information to optical devices too large to implant in the human body. The new 5mm2 biochip, developed by Michael Simpson at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is about the size of a diamond earring. It can be implanted in the body where it is in direct contact with the glucose in the blood stream. If the first phase of the study is successful, a second phase will integrate circuitry of the biochip with an insulin delivery system.
Miniaturization is only one challenge in creating an implantable device, however. Existing sensor technology uses genetically engineered mammalian cells containing a firefly protein, luciferase, and a separate chemical—luciferin—is added to the cells to promote luminescence. “We’re trying to get away from firefly luciferase because you have to add an additional chemical to get the response,” Applegate says. That process entails extracting blood from the patient and adding an exogenous substrate that reacts to the presence of glucose, so the diabetic is still faced with needle pricks on a regular basis.
Instead, the new bioluminescent reporter will create its own light-response reaction. The organism will be genetically altered in two steps to elicit this response. Applegate and Ripp will fuse the light genes—luxAB and luxCDE—from a highly luminescent, naturally occurring bacteria found in nematodes, Xenorhabdus luminescens.
These bacterial genes will then be spliced into a gene from eukaryotic cells, which are taken from higher organisms such as plants and animals. The addition of the bacterial lux genes will theoretically allow the organism to respond to glucose by itself, without the need for destroying cells and adding an exogenous substance. “It’s a big jump from prokaryotic, or bacterial cells, to eukaryotic cells found in humans, animals, and plants, because eukaryotic cells are more complicated,” Applegate says. The modified organism is also coded to respond to the target, in this case glucose. “These cells luminesce on their own. The more glucose, the more light,” Ripp says.
This hybrid biosensor is also better adapted than previous
reporters because it functions at 37 degrees Centigrade, normal human body
temperature, while earlier versions can’t survive above 30 degrees Centigrade.
In addition, it will allow more accurate measurement of glucose than a previous,
implantable prototype that used an enzyme in the bloodstream to detect glucose
concentrations. That experimental approach worked perfectly in research using
dogs, which lack an enzyme inhibitor, but not with humans, Ripp says.
Sensitive and Robust
Unlike earlier bacterial biosensors, this hybrid microorganism will be robust enough to survive in the human bloodstream and sensitive enough to respond to and report on the fluctuations of a living environment. In theory, when the biochip detects the presence of glucose, it releases light, and the Bioluminescent Bioreporter Integrated Circuit can transmit that information to a receiver that quantifies glucose levels to calculate the correct insulin dose, Applegate says. The receiver could be located in an insulin pump worn by the diabetic, or it might be integrated into a dual-purpose, implantable insulin delivery system to keep glucose levels constant without invasive procedures. Remote transmission to a laboratory or doctor’s office may also be possible as the technology evolves.
Moreover, the applications for this new technology are not limited to glucose monitoring in diabetics. Applegate and Ripp are taking a proposal to the National Cancer Institute at a conference to be held at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in June. “Tumors secrete specific proteins, and we want to make a sensor for these proteins,” Applegate says. This would allow very early detection of cancer and might be useful to people with a family history of cancer or for patients who need to be carefully monitored for recurring or new tumors after cancer treatment.
There’s also the possibility that NASA could use this reporter technology in long-term space missions, Ripp says, “to monitor the air and water in the cabin so astronauts know if chemical contaminants are present and at what concentrations.” In addition, a live yeast version of the gene could be used to detect estrogenic compounds—so-called endocrine disrupters—in the environment. (See “Something in the Water” in the Spring 1999 edition of InSites.)
Though this CEB project is in its early stages, Applegate and Ripp have already successfully performed the first cloning of the bacterial genes and fused them to the chip. The next step is to move from bacteria to the mammalian, or eukaryotic, cell lines, Applegate says. The project of integrating the biochip with a miniaturized, implantable insulin delivery system is five or six years away. Nevertheless, the invention of a stand-alone sensor and transmitter in one unit opens the door to a variety of new applications that will move biosensor technology from the laboratory to the field.
***
Contact Gary Sayler, CEB, The University of Tennessee, Dabney Hall, Knoxville, TN 37996-1605,
or call 865-974-8080.
University Program Champions Planet Earth
If the Earth were only a few feet in diameter, floating a few feet above a field somewhere, people would come from everywhere to marvel at it. (Author unknown)
By Elise LeQuire
At the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK), researchers from many disciplines are not just marveling, but seeking hard answers to the larger question of the environmental sustainability of planet Earth.
Pooling the talent and expertise of more than 60 academic disciplines to foster research, education, and service is the mission of the Environment, Natural Resources, and Species Preservation (ENSP) focus area, one of eight thematic programs of excellence identified by UTK’s Academic Affairs Committee as worthy of continued university support. To qualify, these areas of strength must cut across disciplinary fields, promise benefits to society at large, project forward well into the 21st century, and reinforce UTK’s role as the state’s premier research university.
ENSP is chaired by Gary Sayler, director of UTK’s Center for Environmental Biotechnology (CEB), the technological arm of the university’s Waste Management Research and Education Institute (WMREI).
“We want to achieve excellence in terms of environmental sustainability at several levels, including research, teaching, and outreach,” he says.
In the past, interdisciplinary interactions have been driven by individual professors and researchers. ENSP allows a more focused program, pulling together the university’s resources into a tighter matrix, Sayler says.
While the extent of the effort is new, ENSP can draw on the strengths of existing models, including UT’s Energy, Environment and Resources Center, WMREI, CEB, and collaborative, interdisciplinary programs in environmental sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
“We want to use these models to move forward,” Sayler says. For example, CEB has drawn together researchers in microbiology, engineering, and toxicology to study the fate of estrogenic compounds in wastewater treatment plants. (See “Something in the Water” in the Spring 1999 edition of InSites.)
Sayler and his colleagues are also formulating a proposal for the National Institutes of Health to assess exposure of at risk populations to chemical agents from Superfund sites. This project would bring together researchers in electrical engineering, ecology, microbiology, geology, socioeconomics, advanced genetics, and pathobiology. Another goal is to develop an environmental extension service, similar to the agricultural extension service, which builds on that successful model and uses the existing network and infrastructure.
ENSP faculty could also help the university move forward with sustainable projects on campus. For example, Sayler says, faculty could work with the Knoxville Utilities Board to investigate potential for converting the existing coalfired steam plant on campus to a steam plant powered by combustion of solid wastes.
Four ENSP subcommittees have analyzed university environmental programs and faculty strengths, identified environmental initiatives outside the university, found ways to strengthen interdisciplinary and collaborative programs within the university, and conducted strategic planning for future projects.
The ENSP focus area “is a continuation of UTK’s historic landgrant commitment to agriculture as well as an acknowledgment of our considerable research strengths in biological, Earth, and atmospheric sciences,” according to UTK’s Academic Affairs Committee, which is charged with identifying the university’s strengths.
This analysis of both internal and external environmental
projects will allow UTK to build on its strengths and avoid duplication and
redundancy of programs outside the university. To be nationally competitive,
ENSP must pool human and technical resources, define its state and national
niche, and identify strategies to move into prominence in the 21st century,
according to its mission statement.***
Visit the ENSP Web site http://mycorrhiza.ag.utk.edu/ensp/ensp.htm
Efficiency Technique
Hews New Niche
A UT researcher applies time-tested statistical tools to reduce waste and boost efficiency in the wood products industry.
By Laurie Varma
American manufacturers have been slow to introduce methods for reducing waste and inefficiency, but rising costs and mounting pressure from the government and the public to preserve natural resources are prompting today’s wood products industry to re-examine a 70-year-old manufacturing technique.
From both financial and environmental perspectives, the wood products industry, like many others, has traditionally been wasteful. Loggers cut logs in less-than-optimal lengths. Lumber manufacturers resize them to meet specified orders and may wind up burning or landfilling the scraps. To create their products, flooring and furniture manufacturers plane slabs of lumber that have been cut “overthick,” creating additional waste. Lumber manufacturers now take oversized lumber harvests out of forests to account for mistakes in processing, and none of these steps, from the forest to the lumber mill to building-product suppliers, is precise.
Tim Young, an assistant professor with the University of
Tennessee’s Tennessee Forest Products Center, says the wood products industry
is waking up to phenomenal challenges. Among them are fast-rising costs of raw
materials; changing attitudes that call for preservation of the environment;
international competition and increasingly stringent environmental regulations;
and loss of available land through ownership fragmentation, blocks on cutting in
national forests, and urban sprawl. He claims that adopting methods that make
manufacturing more precise and environmentally benign is the only way timber
companies can thrive in the 21st century.
Low-tech, High Return
Young is raising awareness in the wood products industry—in Tennessee and across the country—of a 1930s low-tech tool that helps lumber manufacturers reduce variation in their manufacturing processes, increase efficiency, and improve the quality of final products while reducing waste and protecting the environment.
Any manufacturing process involves variation in processes and raw materials, and these variables affect the quality of the final product. For example, when a company manufactures particle board, it combines wood chips and glue and uses a press that applies heat and pressure to form the board; the company also may make its own glue. Process variables involved in particle-board manufacturing include the heat and pressure applied by the press, as well as how and at what temperature the glue is mixed. Raw material variables may include the size of wood chips and the pH of the glue.
The manufacturing process is influenced by special variation or “unusual events,” such as operator error or equipment failure, and by natural variation that results from differences in the equipment purchased for the plant. These variations, though inevitable to some extent, can be minimized with tools like statistical process control (SPC). And minimizing variation means saving time, natural resources, and money.
First developed in the 1930s, SPC draws on statistical methods and probability theory to predict and isolate causes of manufacturing variation so variations causing the most significant problems with product quality can be corrected.
To incorporate SPC into its manufacturing process, a
company undertakes several tasks. First, key process and raw material variables
are identified, along with their effects on final products. In a hardwood
sawmill, managers might consider such factors as saw speed and lumber thickness.
Next, mill personnel chart the key variables so they can pinpoint variations in
the manufacturing process and the finished product.
Vital Statistics
When the data show special variation, engineers, production managers, and equipment operators identify causes for the variation—such as installation of a new part or equipment malfunction—and shape potential solutions. Statistical methods and probability principles are used throughout the SPC process to predict and identify variation sources.
Once problems are identified, the company works to implement solutions that increase efficiency and reduce variation and waste. Solutions may focus on training employees or adjusting equipment.
Young notes that for manufacturers, it’s extremely important to be able to find out where the kinks are in their process. “Knowing this allows them to fix problems so their product is of higher quality and their process is less wasteful,” he says. “Specifically, they get more final product from the raw materials they feed into the manufacturing process.”
SPC solutions can significantly reduce manufacturing waste: Hardwood sawmills sometimes throw away as much as 3 percent of their lumber—that’s the equivalent of 3 million feet of wood for every 100 million feet of wood cut down—but SPC methods can reduce waste substantially, says Young.
SPC was first applied at the now-famous Hawthorne Works, a
Western Electric plant in Illinois. The factory is best known for studies on the
effects of working conditions, such as lighting, on worker productivity. Other
studies during the 1930s focused on using statistics to improve the quality of
telephone products; the method worked by reducing variations in the
manufacturing process and final products.
Made in Japan
SPC was used minimally in this country during World War II to make bombs and bullets but was set aside for frenzied construction when postwar demand overran supply. The United States largely ignored SPC until the 1980s, but Japan began using it in the 1950s to achieve significant advancements in product quality and cost reduction. By the 1980s, the American public was showing a preference for Japanese cars and electronics, and market share for U.S. products plummeted. In response, U.S. automotive, electronic, and aerospace companies adopted SPC, and most companies in these industries practice the method today.
Young stresses SPC’s importance not only to a manufacturer’s bottom line and economic survival, but also to its environmental performance. “Companies currently tend to buy expensive new equipment every time new environmental regulations come out, but this doesn’t address their inability to be efficient,” he says.
A manufacturing process that optimizes the number of products a company could make from each log would reduce wood and chemical waste and overuse of forest resources, in addition to stemming energy use and the pollution that comes with it.
Says Young, “If wood products manufacturers improved efficiency with tools like SPC, they could decrease their lumber harvest and reduce wood and chemical waste, all of which means good things for the environment.”
Through the Tennessee Quality Lumber Initiative, Young works with companies in the state’s hardwood sawmill industry to apply SPC in their manufacturing processes. “It’s vital for companies in Tennessee and elsewhere to use SPC to improve their business practices, because in today’s market, improving industrial and environmental performance might just make or break a company financially, especially one operating with low profit margins.”
Young points to the strong link between financial performance and environmentally responsible practices. “Today and into the next century, companies that use statistical tools to increase manufacturing process efficiency and preserve natural resources will be the most financially successful,” he says. “SPC requires a complete philosophy overhaul throughout the company and a huge commitment from management, but it will be the key to survival and the ability to thrive.”
***
Contact Tim Young, Tennessee Forest Products Center, The University of Tennessee, 274 Ellington Plant Sciences Building, Knoxville, TN 37901-1071, or call 865-974-3656.
• Projects. The University of Tennessee’s Water Resources Research Center (WRRC) is facilitating the development of a regional "blueways" network of linked water trails in East Tennessee that will encourage canoers and kayakers to make use of local waterways and also promote other forms of recreation, natural resource stewardship, and ecotourism. The project, coordinated by WRRC Graduate Research Assistants Laura Wilks and Jeff Duncan, began as a pilot program along the Holston and lower French Broad rivers and proposes to link to other waterways and greenways in East Tennessee.
Research Scientist Jack Ranney and Graduate Research Assistant Laura Wilks are coordinating a Waste Management Research and Education Institute (WMREI) project that examines the effects of development on streams and riparian habitat. The project is inventorying on- and off-site effects of development. In addition, researchers have recorded the type, condition, and adequacy of stormwater and sediment/erosion-control features at sites in Blount, Knox, Loudon, and Sevier counties. The study will identify opportunities to help developers make decisions that will improve small stream and riparian sustainability.
The final version of Smart
Growth for Tennessee Towns and Counties: A Process Guide is now available on
EERC’s Web site at <http://eerc.ra.utk.edu/smart.htm>. The guide results
from a one-year, WMREI-funded smart-growth study conducted by Research Leader Mary
English, Research Scientist Jean
Peretz, and Graduate Research Assistant Melissa
Manderschied. The guide focuses on the process of developing a local vision
and plan for smart growth, discusses tools for smart growth, and identifies
smart-growth issues that need further research and analysis.
• Meetings. In April, the Center for Clean Products and Clean Technologies (CCPCT), a sub-unit of the Energy, Environment and Resources Center (EERC), hosted representatives from Saturn Corp., General Motors Corp., and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. CCPCT has designed a toolkit that allows industry to analyze and
choose production methods throughout a product’s life
cycle based on the environmental costs associated with such production. CCPCT
Director Gary Davis presented the
toolkit overview, Research Scientist Mary
Swanson explained impact assessment, and Research Associate Jonathan
Overly demonstrated how life-cycle assessment practitioners and designers
would use the toolkit.
• International News. EERC frequently hosts a number of international visitors who come to learn more about how EERC researchers approach environmental analysis. Over the past several months, for example, the Center has hosted Katalin Szili, deputy speaker of the Hungarian National Assembly; Fernando Ballestero, chairman of the board of directors and CEO of a private, agricultural product firm in Madrid, Spain; Pere Riera, vice rector of environmental studies, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain; and Itaru Yausi, professor and director of the Center for Collaborative Research, University of Tokyo, Japan.
