An olfactory tour of our city
by Paige M. Travis
According to scientists, humans can recognize up to 10,000 different odors. We may not be able to describe them all—smells being harder to describe than colors—but we can sense and differentiate between them. When we inhale and engage our olfactory lobes, a certain magic takes place; our sense of smell can give us a sense of place, tell us stories about our surroundings. Scientists also say that smell can trigger memories with more power than sight and sound. You know what I'm talking about if you've ever smelled an ex-girlfriend's perfume after five years or been reminded of your grandmother by the scent of Jell-O in a plastic bowl.
Your home has its own smell. Sometimes you can only sense it if you've been out of town for a few days. What makes that smell? Is it the combined aroma of all your stuff? Sometimes the recipe is easy to figure out. In the case of libraries or bookstores, the sheer volume of ink, paper and glue creates the smell of information. In the case of the Disc Exchange, that rack of incense somehow foments a nameless hippie/gypsy/indie rocker odor.
What is Knoxville's smell? Certainly it contains several parts gasoline and car exhaust. In the summer, there's the scent of fresh-cut grass; in the fall, piles of moldering leaves. At times the waterways smell slightly fishy. But what else? Because odors travel more easily through warm air, winter isn't a good time to pick up subtle aromas, but even in January you can discern the major players in our midst.
Knoxville used to be much smellier than it is now. With trains passing through downtown, boats on the river, ancient sewer systems and puffing factories, the heart of the city must have challenged many a nose.
One industry that's been in town since 1943 is Rohm and Haas, creators of stuff that goes into paper coatings, paint and other industrial products. Before 1973, they created quite a stink in their location between I-40 and Fort Sanders. "If you were around here prior to 1973, we were really a source of odor in the community," says Tom Moore, environmental health and safety manager of Rohm and Haas. He says the raw products they work with, called monomers, can have a very low odor threshold. "In other words, it doesn't take but a few parts per billion of the material in the air for it to be smelled," he says.
It's not unusual, Moore says, for people to connect their plant with another smell in the area. Shamrock Organic Products on Ailor Avenue sends up a strong, tangy smell on days when they stir their mulch piles. "No, that's not us," Moore confirms. "I don't mean to say by any stretch of the imagination that we can't make a smell. We can and have in years past. But we try very hard through the design of our equipment and the systems we have in place to control, capture and destroy the odors we could generate."
More than a few noses are on alert at Rohm and Haas and the surrounding area. "When we get a complaint from the community, whoever's on [duty] will go out immediately where the smell is reported and investigate." A reported odor could mean the oxidizer isn't working properly or a leak has occurred in a tank or tube. How do they know what they're smelling for? "We've all worked here 25 to 30 years, so we know what our stuff smells like," Moore says. "If you get the technical literature on the materials, they characterize it as a fruity odor. But to a lot of people it's irritating and offensive."
Rohm and Haas is so diligent about odor control and serious about being a good neighbor that the company has a 25-member community advisory council representing surrounding neighborhoods, the University of Tennessee and Fort Sanders Hospitals. "As they go about their business in the community they are committed to giving us a call if they smell us. So, we have a sort of de facto odor patrol."
Something is burning in the Old City, but no smoke rises from the busy factory that lies between Jackson Avenue and the railroad tracks. The smell is acrid and not half as appetizing as the product being created at the source of the smell.
Downtown Knoxville wouldn't be complete without the smell of JFG Coffee. Six roasters work four days a week to roast 300 to 500 pounds of coffee beans into dark brown perfection before they are ground and packaged. The smell verges on a stink, but as far as quality control supervisor Jim Dunsmore knows, the factory has never received anything but compliments.
"I was talking to someone this week who called in for some unrelated reason, and they said they really enjoy that smell when they come to town," Dunsmore says. The person who called was an older person who had memories of coming to Knoxville to shop, he says. Those memories were triggered no doubt by that sharp smell, a smell that's not always recognizable as coffee unless you already know the odor's source.
Dunsmore explains that the smell used to be much stronger before the EPA required the use of afterburners on the smoke stacks, which decreased emissions as well as the smell of roasting beans. "[The afterburner] burns the smoke and keeps the stench down and keeps it from putting pollutants into the air. There have been comments from people who say they miss that strong old coffee smell."
The scent of roasting coffee beans and peanuts (for JFG peanut butter) is probably one of the more pleasant aromas created by local industry. Across town, especially on days when the moisture is high and there is a fog on the river, a certain sour smell can catch your nose as you walk or cruise down Neyland Drive. It's not an odor you'd want at your breakfast table every morning.
"Most people compare the odor to a musty smell, similar to decaying leaves," says KUB Supervisor of Communications Kelly Lane. The smell that rises over KUB's Water Treatment Plants is the smell of 35 million gallons of wastewater from the sinks, toilets, washing machines, dishwashers, bath tubs and drains of households and businesses across downtown. Gathered together, this wastewater starts breaking down. "Anytime you have organic matter that's breaking down, whether it's naturally or whether it's being helped along by chemicals, there are some gases that are produced." Those gases, which are probably what we smell when we smell KUB, are methane, carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide. Lane can't say that she's ever received an official complaint about odors coming from KUB's water treatment plant. "We've never had to do any press releases or major communications about an odor," Lane says. "Depending on various factors...the smell is probably there all the time, because the process is going on all the time."
Since I can't pinpoint every smell I've ever smelt coming from the direction of the river, I can't say for sure that KUB is the source of the stench I was privy to as a resident of the riverside Maplehurst neighborhood. Lane claims that her frequent trips past the plant on Neyland haven't put her nose in contact with any foul odors. "I've been there on tours, and I drive by there going to different locations, but I've never noticed much of a smell."
Down the river to the east comes another smell, also organic in nature, that draws people from far and wide to sit around big tables and dine at one of Knoxville's culinary favorites.
Calhoun's riverside location is like an olfactory billboard advertising the best ribs in the free world. Whose nose hasn't perked up, whose mouth hasn't watered, upon sniffing the hickory smoke that wafts above the restaurant, day and night? Even Calhoun's manager Lisa Bunton, who has been a vegetarian for 12 years, appreciates the aroma.
"It smells good," she says. "It doesn't bother me. I can see how people could smell it and crave it." Do her carnivorous co-workers crave the meat they smoke? "Oh, definitely. This company encourages that. We eat at this restaurant and the other restaurants we own." Bunton says that Calhoun's cooks smoke the meat in three different shifts throughout the day. The big black kettle grill is parked right behind the restaurant. The smell of smoking meat (which really isn't the smell of meat at all, but rather that of the hickory wood being burned) crops up around town wherever barbecue joints are located. I've always imagined that they use big fans to blow the smoke as far as possible to lure people in.
Bunton has never had a customer complain about the smoke odor, but the taste has caused some comment. "The only time we've had complaints is [with] our prime rib," Bunton says. "Because it's hickory smoked and because it's so distinct, some people don't like it. With the ribs, I think everybody expects it, but with the prime rib, sometimes they don't want that hickory flavor."
Bread comes in many forms, takes up a whole aisle in the grocery store, and makes up a good portion of our diets. It also smells particularly good when it's baking. Whether or not your mother actually baked bread in your childhood kitchen, the aroma of a loaf in the oven is indivisible from thoughts of home and family, and the scent is undeniably mouth-watering. That's why the Kern's Bakery on Chapman Highway is such a welcome member of Knoxville's sensory skyline.
Operations manager Mike Wardel has been smelling fresh baking bread at Kern's since 1970. "We have positive comments," he says, and it's hard to imagine getting otherwise when a factory's emissions smell so delicious.
Next door at Tapp Optical, owner Gale Roberts is a happy neighbor. "I like the smell of it," he says, noting that he and his employees can't smell the bread inside their building, but if they could... "We couldn't stand it," he says. "We'd weigh 400 pounds." In addition to making him crave bread and other treats, the smell of fresh baking bread reminds Roberts of the past. "I can remember when my grandmother used to make it. That's the way it smelled. It makes you hungry, too."
Across the country in St. Louis, where Earthgrains has its headquarters, they know the importance of a city's smells and some of the science behind it. The aroma of baking bread comes from "aromatic organic compounds," says Matt Hall, Earthgrains' director of public communications. That's a fancy way of saying "the smell created by flour, water, sugar and yeast." As the yeast feeds on the sugar and releases carbon dioxide to make the bread rise, carbon dioxide and ethanol are released into the ovens, through the network of pipes and into the atmosphere. The heat of the ovens is also released into the air, carrying the particles into the community. The aroma is like an old friend to locals, and it helps connect the bakery with nearby residents and businesses.
"Bread has a very wholesome image with people," Hall says. "It's a staple of the diet: grain products are the basis of a good, healthy, nutritious diet. So baking companies have always had very wholesome images in the communities where they're located. Part of that comes from the ingredients we use to make our products and the aroma that the product gives off. Bakeries tend to be pretty good neighbors."
Knoxville's industries bake bread, roast coffee, treat water, smoke ribs and produce various products that sustain our local economy. The odors emitted on a daily basis may be only side effects, but the odd stenches, persistent stinks, and fragrant aromas that surround us every day give Knoxville its own unique perfume.
Breathe deeply. This is what we smell like.
February 1, 2001 * Vol. 11, No. 5
© 2001 Metro Pulse
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