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Seven Days

Wednesday, Feb. 21
The Metropolitan Knoxville Airport Authority is taken by surprise when the cost of a 1997 airport development plan is reported at $30 million, rather than the original $20 million estimate. The authority's response: Overrunning a runway could be worse.

Thursday, Feb. 22
UT students are breathing sighs of relief that two men are arrested and accused of being the Morrill Hall bandits. The first report in the daily describes them as college students in the first paragraph, but doesn't get around to mentioning they were Knoxville College students until the 11th paragraph, even though KC officials helped with the investigation. Political Correctness in the 11th degree?

Friday, Feb. 23
The payback for encroachment on nature award for the week goes to the builders of a home in Sevier County, which is heavily damaged by falling rock from an embankment four (4!) feet behind the structure. Luckily, no one is hurt.

Saturday, Feb. 24
The Vols men's basketball team breaks a five-game losing streak at Vanderbilt. Hearts are broken among those screaming for coach Jerry Green's neck until the obvious dawns on them: It's only Vanderbilt.

Monday, Feb. 26
A former assistant dean at UT's College of Law pleads guilty to possession of child pornography—a video entitled "Fun With Daddy" that he bought from federal agents. Didn't his father ever tell him the feds are no fun at all?

Knoxville Found

(Click photo for larger image)

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:
Y'know, some weeks we run photos of obscure artifacts tucked away in alleys, and we get swamped with correct identifications. Other weeks, like this one, we run a picture of something thousands of people pass every day, and almost no one recognizes it. This is a detail from the base of the statue Europa on the McClung Tower Plaza at the University of Tennessee. Swedish sculptor Carl Milles designed his original work for a fountain in Halmstad, in his native country. The recast was commissioned for UT in 1967. In case you're rusty on your mythology, the statue depicts the Phoenician princess Europa being borne out to sea by Zeus, disguised as a bull. In the 1976 Knoxville history tome Heart of the Valley, UT art professor Frederick C. Moffat was less than enthusiastic about the work: "[W]ithout the accompanying tritons and abundant sprays of water that lend motion and excitement to the central grouping in the original, Europa and her bull appear isolated and somewhat deflated; Europa exhorts her steed onward to Crete, but Zeus sinks, a dead hulk, into the concrete desert of the plaza." Kind of like an undergrad in an 8 o'clock class. Anyway, the one and only right answer came from Steve Cotham of Knoxville. For his classically trained eye, he wins a promotional whoopee cushion for the movie Monkeybone. Use it wisely.

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

EMPOWERMENT ZONE ADVISORY COUNCIL BOARD NEIGHBORHOOD CAUCUS
THURSDAY, MARCH 1
6:30 P.M.
FULTON HIGH SCHOOL
2509 N. BROADWAY
Neighborhood groups will elect members to direct the six Zone Advisory Councils in Knoxville's center city Empowerment Zone.

KNOX COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION
MONDAY, MARCH 5
5 P.M.
ANDREW JOHNSON BUILDING
912 S. GAY STREET
Work session.

MAYOR'S NIGHT OUT
MONDAY, MARCH 5
5 P.M.
DEAN HILL RECREATION CENTER
Come talk shop with the mayor! Everybody's welcome!

KCDC COMMUNITY MICROLOAN PROGRAM INFORMATIONAL MEETINGS
MONDAY, MARCH 5 AND TUESDAY, MARCH 6
5:30 P.M.
KCDC
901 N. BROADWAY
KCDC will provide information on its microloan program for small business owners.

KNOXVILLE CITY COUNCIL
TUESDAY, MARCH 6
7 P.M.
CITY COUNTY BUILDING
400 MAIN STREET
As usual, Council's agenda remains a closely guarded secret as we go to press.

KNOX COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7
5 P.M.
CITY COUNTY BUILDING
400 MAIN STREET
Regular monthly meeting.

RENAISSANCE KNOXVILLE PUBLIC HEARING
THURSDAY, MARCH 8
5 P.M.
CITY COUNTY BUILDING
400 MAIN STREET
For information and input on the new Renaissance Knoxville proposal for downtown redevelopment. If you want a chance to talk, sign up before the meeting or call Ruth Coleman in the city's public affairs office at 215-2065.

TVA's Coal Plants Get More Heat

Environmental groups sue TVA to clear the air

Two environmental groups have filed a lawsuit against TVA, claiming two of its coal power plants are violating the Clean Air Act.

The lawsuit—filed by the National Parks Conservation Association and the Sierra Club—mirrors an administrative ruling by the Environmental Protection Agency, which says the same power plants are violating the act. However, the EPA ruling cannot go to court—because it involves two federal agencies—and could be settled, says Don Barger, Southeast regional director of the parks association.

"Our action is a citizens' suit," Barger says. "We won't be under pressure to either settle or dismiss...TVA's not out of the woods, unless they also deal with us."

The lawsuit claims that TVA is skirting a loophole in the Clean Air Act, by upgrading older power plants to extend their lives. Older plants aren't subject to the same regulations that new power plants are. In 1988, TVA spent $8.3 million renovating its Bull Run coal power plant in Clinton but didn't modernize its pollution controls, the lawsuit claims. "Bull Run's operation and maintenance budget could not have supported this project while meeting routine maintenance requirements," the lawsuit states. The improvement extended the life of the boiler 20 years. Similar claims are made about TVA's Colbert plant in Tuscumbia, Ala.

TVA spokeswoman Barbara Martocci says the power company disagrees with the EPA's and environmental group's interpretations of the Clean Air Act. "All TVA plants meet all health-based standards that are required by the Clean Air Act," Martocci says.

She says TVA does take some measures to limit emissions and is adding a selective catalytic reduction system at Bull Run, which will decrease them further.

But Barger says TVA is not doing all it can. By not complying with the Clean Air Act, he says, the two plants have unnecessarily emitted 1.1 million tons of sulfur dioxide and 316,000 tons of nitrogen oxides in the past 18 years. These two emissions are responsible for ozone pollution and acid rain and have degraded air quality in the Great Smoky Mountains to that of a large city. They decrease visibility in the park and threaten people's health.

Barger says the parks association is taking a close look at TVA's other coal plants as well.

"You could produce several times the amount of electricity from new plants for the same amount of pollution that these old plants do," Barger says.

—Joe Tarr

Reports from the Frontier

Newsweek science writer explores difference between research and reporting

As a species, we've come a long way since we first learned how to make fire. Now it takes a specialist just to know what is going on in any field of science. So how do people without Ph.Ds keep up? Enter the science writers.

On Monday, March 5, Sharon Begley of Newsweek magazine will give a speech at the University of Tennessee, titled "Why Science Journalism Isn't Science." (The speech, at the University Center's Cumberland Suite, will start at 8 p.m. and is open to the public. It's part of the Alfred and Julia Hill Lecture on Science, Society, and Mass Media.)

Begley is the science editor for Newsweek, where she has been working since her graduation from Yale in 1977 with a B.A. in combined sciences. She considered working in physics but didn't want to play a small part in the large squads that do physics research. "Science has become 'big' science," Begley says. "It's no longer the single researcher in a lab, but huge teams. That just didn't appeal to me temperamentally." She writes on subjects ranging from the evolution of life to curing cancer. A recent Newsweek story of hers, "Showdown in DNA Corral," is about the completion of the human genome project. Of the many awards she has won are two Page One Awards from the Newspaper Guild of New York, two Global Awards for Media Excellence from the Population Institute, and two Deadline Club Awards for best feature reporting in a magazine.

Begley's lecture will compare the scientist with the science writer. They are similar in that they search for truth (whatever that means), and both want to discover something (journalists want a story, scientists want to discover a new drug or a new galaxy). But they differ in how they define objectivity. "Scientists define objectivity by collecting evidence according to the scientific method," Begley says, "but journalists think they are objective if they've gotten the two sides to a story. And scientists don't think that's objective." When writing about science, that means finding a scientist who holds an opposing view. "We will bend over backwards to find a dissenting opinion...often without indicating how much of a minority the dissenting opinion is," Begley says.

Much of science is not final; theories are valid for years and then proven wrong in a day. "There are lots of fields of science where the final answer is not in, that's fine. On the other hand, you can have a scientist paid by industry to give a certain spin on the evidence," Begley says. An example would be a company that wants certain chemicals declared non-toxic, or an electric company that wants to discredit worries about global warming. Begley tries to minimize that effect by asking what groups scientists are affiliated with, whether they own stock in the company they do work for and by getting information from a second source. Journalists must be careful not to provide free advertising for a company or its product, she says, and to make sure that the results of the test or study are accurate.

There are other reasons that writing about science isn't like writing about other subjects, such as sports or politics. "You can't take any facts for granted," Begley says. "You can't assume that people know the difference between a galaxy and a solar system." In writing about sports, it is understood that people know what you mean when you say the NBA or RBI; in politics, people know the difference between a Democrat and a Republican. The science writer has to assume that the reader knows nothing about the subject matter.

Begley blames that on the science education we receive in schools. "It stinks," she says. It is also the source of ill will between scientists and journalists. "The press is delighted to write about flesh-eating bacteria," Begley says, "but scientists want journalists to perform more of an educational role—to take up slack where science education in school fails."

—Eric Winford