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Seven Days

Wednesday, Oct. 11
The Department of Energy reports that the health and safety of workers took a back seat to production issues at the K-25 uranium enrichment plant in Oak Ridge for decades. Hey, haven't they heard of the benefits of radiation therapy?
Digital Crossing, the high-tech office building conversion at Locust Street and Summit Hill Avenue, is only a month behind schedule and $200,000 over budget and is fully leased as it opens officially. Those developers really should offer their services to Sheriff Tim Hutchison and the Knox County Commission and executive for their Jail-o-rama project.

Thursday, Oct. 12
Ripley's Aquarium in the Smokies announces it plans to open its humongous saltwater facility in Gatlinburg on or about Halloween Day. In keeping with the season and the Gatlinburg theme of fooling some of the people all of the time, the fish will all be wax models depicted at the wheel of classic cars once owned by Grand Ole Opry cast members. The water will be added later.
Lay Packing Co. calls a halt to hot dog production to find the source of alleged bacterial contamination. Major League Baseball postpones the rest of its playoff schedule until production can be resumed.

Saturday, Oct. 14
Attendees at a band party on the second floor of a building at 6 Emory Place just north of downtown escape almost miraculously with a few minor injuries when more than 50 of them are dumped downstairs as the floor collapses. The performers will be known ever after as the band that truly brought down the house.

Monday, Oct. 16
Mayor Ashe says he will hold off on a decision whether to allow Knox County to erect an "ugly...Stalinist-looking" jail structure on green space outside the City County Building to see if District Attorney General Randy Nichols and Sheriff Tim Hutchison can set aside their disagreement and make a joint recommendation on what's needed. President Clinton and Secretary of State Albright are recalled from their Mideast mission to mediate.

Tuesday, Oct. 17
In Sevier County, a National Park Service archeologist reveals that a dig has turned up evidence of a pre-Colombian culture that made tools, including something used to grind vegetable matter. Does this mean the region's proud tradition of using corn mash to distill the precious white liquid now known as The Great Spirit may predate men in felt hats and the reprehensible Tax of 1792?

Knoxville Found

What is this? Every week in "Knoxville Found," we'll print the photo of a local curiosity. If you're the first person to correctly identify this oddity, you'll win a special prize plucked from the desk of the editor (keep in mind that the editor hasn't cleaned his desk in five years). E-mail your guesses, or send 'em to "Knoxville Found" c/o Metro Pulse, 505 Market St., Suite 300, Knoxville, TN 37902.

Last Week's Photo:
Who was that masked monkey? Well, as any self-respecting Halls homie knows (and they're all self-respecting in Halls, yo), he's the greetin' gorilla that waves to passing cars from the car lot of McManus-Wilson Motors on Maynardville Highway. (Some entrants confused him with similar simians out Clinton Highway. Lots of apes in the auto business around here, apparently). This week's winner, by dint of being the first to get it right, is Eric Arnold of Knoxville. For his vast and daunting knowledge of local automotive arcana, he receives a copy of jazz legend Abbey Lincoln's swanky new CD Over the Years. Dig it.

Meet Your City
A calendar of upcoming public meetings you should attend

KNOX COUNTY COMMISSION PUBLIC HEARING
THURSDAY, OCT. 26
7 P.M.
WEST HIGH SCHOOL
3326 SUTHERLAND AVENUE
Commission will take comments on County Executive Tommy Schumpert's latest proposal for a new downtown jail at this hearing. But they can't listen if nobody shows up.

PUBLIC BUILDING AUTHORITY
TUESDAY, OCT. 24
5 P.M.
CITY COUNTY BUILDING
400 MAIN STREET
From PBA's latest press release: "One of the items of business will be the consideration of a resolution to amend the PBA amended and restated bylaws." Yum.

Food Fight!

Home is where the ruler is

Mob rule, broken rules or the Law of Rule? The view of what's going on with that venerable bunch of annexation fighters, Citizens for Home Rule, depends on who you ask. In recent months, the group has been so riven with differences that the warring factions are headed to court, where Chancellor Darrell Fansler will preside over a hearing Friday at 11:30 a.m. to decide issues like who is really president and who gets to keep the keys to the mailbox.

The leading characters are Patra Rule, a board member, and John Emison, who may or may not be CHR president. The internal dispute went public last week when a Rule-led faction of the board scheduled the "trial" of John Emison in a back room at a West Knoxville Kroger.

For years, CHR has been a court of last resort for unwilling annexees into the city of Knoxville. The drill went like this—they'd go to City Council to plead their case, and when their pleas were rejected, the reluctant new Knoxvillians would cut a check for $25 and join up with CHR, whose attorney, David Buuck, would file a law suit to block the annexation. Buuck has never lost such a case, and it's been years since the city has bothered to contest the CHR-filed suits, although there are indications that this may be changing. (the caveat here is that the cause of action expires with the plaintiff's freehold, so if the property changes hands, the new owner gets a "Welcome to Knoxville" letter from the mayor.)

Cecil Kelly and Bob Hembree got annexed this summer, joined CHR and filed lawsuits. Fearing that the schism in the group might affect their legal status, they decided to venture out of their Fountain City area homes and trek over to the Marketplace Kroger to find out what was going on.

Hembree, a retired utility district executive, and Kelly, a retired school board member/elementary school principal, made their way down Aisle 3M to the fish counter, swung right and went through a door that said "Employees Only." With Kelly leaning on his cane, they negotiated a narrow hallway past the "Hairnets Only" sign, and went through a dimly-lit, open area and up some industrial-grade metal stairs to a second-floor meeting room.

What happened next is another of those things that varies, according to whom you ask.

Most of those present say Rule threw them out, under what they call the "Law of Rule."

"She told us to get out in no uncertain terms," says Kelly. "It went into bedlam before it was over, and nobody even wanted to go in after that. Most of us didn't know what it was all about. I was a brand-new member, and so was Bob Hembree. There are polite ways to do things and there are belligerent ways—it could have been settled amicably, if she'd been courteous enough to approach it that way. I didn't even know who Patsy Rule was. I do now."

Rule says she merely explained that bona fide members could stay, and insists that she was the one who was subjected to abuse.

"If they'd had ropes, I'd be dead today, We had a mob on our hands. They stoned me with their words...I took them in the hall and explained to them how they could get in the room. I went over this procedure: If you were a member in good standing you will be admitted to this room."

Kelly, Hembree, Emison and several dozen others backed off and held what one called "a rump roast caucus" somewhere near the Ragu sauces while Rule and the remaining board members went on with the meeting. The rump roasters left, but not before one of them convinced the store manager to throw the Rule faction out.

Rule maintains that the board voted to oust Emison and another officer. Emison says Rule's faction did not have the eight votes required by CHR bylaws.

On Friday, Fansler will be asked to sort it out.

—Betty Bean

Do You Know Where Your Water's Been?

UT says herbicide use on Boyd Island isn't a problem

It's long been a dream among East Knox County residents to turn Boyd Island, at the Forks of the River, into a park.

Owned by the University of Tennessee since 1975, the island sits in the Holston River, separated from the Holston River Park by a small stream. Rows of corn stalks stand on it.

UT doesn't show any desire to surrender the island. However, some residents became concerned when they heard rumors the university is using the island to test herbicides.

The use was particularly alarming because the island is not far up river from KUB's water intake center—which supplies Knoxville with its drinking water.

Tim Gangaware of UT's Energy, Environment and Resource Center says herbicide applications have been known to contaminate water supplies. However, he doesn't know enough about what is being done on Boyd Island to say whether there's a danger.

"It depends on application rates, quantities and things like that. It could potentially pose a threat. I would hope [KUB's] been informed and are monitoring for what's been applied out there," he says. "There have been small applications in other places that have caused utilities to have to shut down."

Several professors from UT's Institute of Agriculture assured a Metro Pulse reporter that there was no danger. John Hodges III, superintendent of Boyd Island, says less than 30 acres of the island's roughly 125 acres is used for the herbicide research, which is sprayed by hand on room-sized patches of corn. Another 60 acres is used to grow corn for the University's hogs—a crop that is also sprayed with herbicides. Hay and soybeans are grown on the island. Barriers of grass separate the crops from the water to act as a filter for any water runoff. The herbicides are tested to see what works best in controlling weeds.

Thomas C. Mueller, a plant and soil sciences professor who oversees the research, says that herbicides are sprayed on in small amounts by hand once or twice a year, from late April through June. "I'm not going to go out with a big truck. I spray it by hand," Mueller says.

The herbicides are of the Round-up variety and include photosynthetic inhibitors and amino acid synthesis inhibitors. "Most of what I do is that type of product, because it's environmentally safe and effective," he says.

UT doesn't do any monitoring to see if these herbicides are showing up in the water or off-site. Michael Essington, another plant and soil science professor who does research, says the reason is that these chemicals break down so quickly, and are used in such small amounts, they'd be difficult to trace.

Essington tests for these herbicides at other UT properties where runoff would be much more likely—places such as steep slopes that are much more erosive—and has yet to find evidence that they've moved off-site. "We specifically look for these things. They're just not there," Essington says. A water test in the Holston in 1997 showed no evidence of the chemicals, he says.

However, UT has not worked with KUB to make sure the chemicals don't show up.

"By the time it gets to KUB, it could have come from anywhere. There's so much agricultural land along the river, it's going to be like a spit in the ocean," Essington says. "It'll be so low concentration, it'll never be seen."

For its part, KUB says it is not concerned about the herbicide use on Boyd Island. KUB periodically tests for herbicides and other chemicals. "They use pesticides as any farmer would," says Kelly Lane, the utility's communications supervisor. "If they were using large concentrations, it would be good for us to know. But it's not been a problem."

—Joe Tarr