Metro Pulse/Cover/Knoxville's Environment

Comment
on this story

What You Can Do to Green Your City

The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) will address local concerns regarding air, water or solid waste pollution and direct them to the correct regional office. Call toll-free 888-891-8332.

Water

If you see a sewer overflow, call KUB's emergency line immediately at 524-2911, and the city's Water Quality Hotline at 215-4147.

You can also alert the state's local Environment and Conservation Department, Water Pollution Control Division, at 594-6035.

Air

Buying a car? Check out www.cleancarcampaign.org to learn about gas-electric hybrids from Honda and Toyota. See the Natural Gas Vehicle Coalition web site, www.ngvc.org, to learn about bifuel cars and pickup trucks from Ford, GMC, Chevy and Honda. (Natural gas pumps can be purchased at Fuelmaker.) Or use the easy search tool at the Alternative Fuels Data Center, to find just the right vehicle—and where to fill it up.

Can KAT take you where you're going? Find out at their website.

To report air pollution concerns, call the state's local Environment and Conservation Department, Air Pollution Control Division, at 594-6035.

Solid Waste

To find out exactly who takes what and where, call the Knoxville Recycling Coalition hotline, 521-9900. A summary:

Cans, plastic, glass, newspaper, cardboard: accepted at most of the 11 city and eight county drop-off centers. County (non-city) residents can get these items and garbage picked up curbside by Waste Connections (formerly BFI) for $18 a month, plus $10 for a bin. Call 522-0078 for info.

Mixed paper, residential: city drop-off centers. The city picks up paper and cardboard from small downtown businesses for about $35 per financial quarter; call 215-2921. The Knoxville Recycling Coalition's Purple Paper Eater devours office paper all over Knox County, as well as in Blount County and Oak Ridge; call 525-9694.

Goodwill-attended donation centers for reusable items: city drop-off centers.

Scrap metal, auto batteries, oil filters and antifreeze: county convenience centers.

Grass, leaves, tree limbs: county green waste centers.

Hazardous waste, including computers, fluorescent lights, pesticides, cleaning agents and paint: joint city/county center. (You can also buy recycled paint there at $5 a gallon). Call 523-9463 for more info.

Ink cartridges: NuCycle Technologies, 525-8020.

Computers: The Oak Ridge National Recycle Center, 241-3525.

Cell phones: Goodwill donation centers at city drop-off sites.

To report illegal dumping: Call the city's Solid Waste Department at 215-2496.

Gauging Knoxville's environmental well-being

by Tamar Wilner

Sure, we're crawling with kudzu, and we're close to mountains, woods, lakes, rivers, state natural areas, and the most frequently visited National Park. But are we kind to our environment? Do our actions create and sustain a place that's pleasant and healthy to live in? And how much will be left for future generations to enjoy?

Some clues may be found in Knoxville's performance in three major environmental arenas: water, air, and solid waste. And while we may not like what we see, the results aren't all doom and gloom. A few innovative companies and organizations improve our environmental outlook, even if Knoxville does fail on some counts. And other cities provide examples of how Knoxville can do better. Together, political solutions and personal lifestyle changes may set us on the path towards a cleaner, greener, more livable and more responsible city.

Water
Down the toilet...and up again

"Before he died, my husband said, 'Margie, I want to sit on the porch just once.' But I wouldn't let him. I was so scared he'd catch hepatitis," Margie Martin says. Her husband, Ralph, died of cancer about a year ago. "We were basically prisoners in our own home."

Behind Martin's Cedar Lane house, where one might expect to find a green lawn or flower beds, often lies putrid swampland: on rainy days, untreated sewage bursts out of a nearby manhole, flooding her property and seeping into her basement. Human feces, toilet paper and used condoms are deposited on the lawn where she wishes her grandchildren could play. Other peoples' waste burbles out of her toilet. These conditions have plagued her house for 10 years, she says, making her home unlivable and unsalable. She blames the Knoxville Utility Board, which provides sanitary waste service for 62,000 city and county customers, and she plans to sue.

"They promise everything," Martin says. "They don't do anything. They lie."

Martin continues to pay a water and sewage bill of about $32 each month. She says KUB promised her a reimbursement, which she has yet to receive.

KUB senior vice president and chief operating officer Bill Elmore says the utility has only known of Martin's situation for eight years, and for half of those Martin filed no complaints. He says KUB probably cannot waive Martin's fees.

"I don't know that we have provisions that allow us to not charge the customer and explain that to the other customers," Elmore says.

He notes that while Martin's situation is unfortunate, the utility's sewer system is no worse than other cities.'

"It's suffering the same kinds of things that every system across the country is," Elmore says. "That's an early lack of funding."

Danielle Droitsch, executive director of the Tennessee Clean Water Network, agrees that Knoxville's problem with overflows is not unique.

"Every single utility sewage collector in the country has this problem," Droitsch says. Even Portland, Ore., regarded as one of the nation's greenest cities, has had hundreds of sewer overflows in the last five years.

Between January and August of this year, KUB reported 211 sewer overflows. Elmore says about half of those happen in dry weather, caused by pipe blockages such as grease build-up and invading roots. The rest occur when heavy rains enter the system through manholes or cracks and overwhelm the pipes. Since the sewage system is gravity-driven, its main trunks often follow creeks, and creek water can enter the pipes as well. When too much water enters a pipe and the pressure inside becomes too great, water bursts out of a nearby manhole, sometimes pushing the cover right off. Overflows can range in volume from mere drops to geysers of 100 gallons per minute or more, according to the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation's John West.

TDEC and the city have each issued KUB two notices of violation for overflows. Mary Vestal Park is one frequently affected site; TDEC's notices of violation remark that "the Mary Vestal Park overflow is within a few feet of a walking trail and represents a potential health hazard to park users" and accuses KUB of a "historic failure to provide the potentially affected public any identification of overflows and their disease causing potential. Furthermore, KUB has made little effort to keep the general public away from spilled sewage, even in city parks."

"Each overflow is illegal," West says. "They don't have any permitted authority that allows for overflows. No town does."

It's nearly impossible to say whether the overflow problem has improved or declined. Statistics show the number of overflows rising from 70 in 2000 to 175 in 2001, but West says, "I've got a pretty good feeling this is improved reporting."

Elmore says KUB has made great strides since taking over wastewater management from the city in 1987. KUB improved its plant capacity, worked with the city to eliminate the last combined stormwater-sewer pipes at a cost of $17 million (in Sequoyah Hills, in the mid-1990s), and undertook capital improvements to the system's 1,300 miles of sewer lines that will cost $28 million over the next five years. In addition, Elmore says, KUB spends $1.5 million to clean and flush 200 miles of pipe a year. "That doesn't solve the problem," he adds. "It's just unfortunate that the solutions are very complex, as is the problem."

Droitsch, however, says KUB hasn't taken enough action. Five Knox County streams—First, Second, Third, Goose, and Sinking Creeks—contain levels of pathogens that could pose a threat to human health, according to the Department of Environment and Conservation. Tennessee's standard for above-ground streams is 200 colonies of the bacteria E. coli (an indicator of fecal matter) per 100 milliliters. The mean measurements for First, Second, Third, and Goose Creeks are about between 3,000 and 9,000 colonies per 100 milliliters.

A proposed TDEC pollution-reduction plan, if approved, will require those levels reduced by 90 percent. The plan cites several sources of fecal matter in streams—overflows, leaky sewer lines, industrial discharges, failing septic systems, animal waste and stormwater runoff.

But Droitsch says KUB is by far the largest contributor to the creeks' fecal matter levels, though the utility may disagree. And David Hagerman of the city's stormwater management section, in the department of engineering, says, "It's fairly clear KUB's a major player."

The strain of E. coli used to measure fecal levels is harmless, but water contaminated with fecal material may contain harmful strains of E. Coli along with parasites such as giardia, crypto and hookworm, and the bacteria and viruses that cause cholera, typhoid fever, meningitis, pneumonia, and hepatitis A. Most of these pathogens cause diarrhea, cramps and fever; E. coli infection can also cause kidney failure in children and the elderly; pneumonia and meningitis affect the lungs and nervous system, and like E. coli can be fatal. Knox County Health Department medical officer

Stephanie Hall says not all these diseases are necessarily present in the Knoxville area.

Signs urging passersby not to come in contact with the contaminated streams have been up since about 1984, and more signs will go up if TDEC approves the fecal matter-reduction plan. Droitsch recalls seeing the signs when she first moved to Knoxville 10 years ago. "I am astounded, from 1992 to 2002, that we haven't taken one stream off the list. And I haven't heard any plans outlined by KUB," Droitsch says.

West points out that the risk from getting sick is minimal, unless a person drinks contaminated creek water. However, it is certainly possible to approach one of these creeks and not see a sign warning against the dangers.

"I can guarantee you this much, that kids don't care," Droitsch adds. "There's a playground that's right there [on Third Creek greenway]. All kids have to do is walk over.... Maybe it's not dioxins, maybe it's not PCBs, but it's pollution that makes you sick. It's pollution that presents the possibility of health problems. We have watched this for a decade and it has not improved."

For Margie Martin, that danger is as close as her back door.

"What really hurts me so bad, I can't sell my home, I can't go anywhere," she says. Her homeowner's insurance rates have gone up because the problem is so persistent. "I'm so scared. I'm bleaching and cleaning all the time," she manages between tears. "I've gone anywhere I know to go. I don't know what to do."

Elmore says Martin's home lies on the most problematic part of the system, and the blockage creating her overflow will be fixed in two phases of capital improvements—one to be completed by July 2003, and one to begin after that date. Martin, however, says she's heard such promises for five years, and she's had enough.

Air
Highway to environmental hell

Air quality in Knoxville isn't good. The American Lung Association has ranked ours the eighth worst metropolitan area in the country when it comes to ozone. Most articles on pollution in East Tennessee have focused on the contribution of Tennessee Valley Authority's coal-fired plants, and with good reason: Power plants produce more pollutants than any other source. According to the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, in 1999 TVA's Paradise Plant alone produced as much nitrogen oxide, or NOx, as all the cars in the state.

But TVA is by no means the only contributor. Thirty to forty percent of nitrogen oxides come from transportation, mostly diesel trucks and buses, and the figure in Knoxville may be as high as 50 percent. NOx is a lung irritant in its own right, a major contributor to ozone, and a main ingredient of acid rain, which can kill fish, crops, and forests. About a third of ozone comes from transportation. Ozone provokes asthma attacks in those with the disease, may help develop asthma in children, and may even damage the lungs of healthy adults. Ozone levels in the Smokies are nearly twice those of Knoxville, and ozone has damaged at least 30 species of plants in the park.

Carbon monoxide is another pollutant that affects the respiratory system; it reduces the lungs' ability to effectively deliver oxygen to the body. Over half of carbon monoxide emissions nationally come from on-road vehicles, according to Jonathan Overly of UT's Center for Clean Products and Clean Technology, and that figure is higher in urban areas. Scorecard.org, a website run by the non-profit Environmental Defense, ranks Knox County among the worst 10 percent in the nation for carbon monoxide and nitrous oxides. Carbon dioxide, on the other hand, is not directly harmful to humans; but it has been found to contribute to global warming. About a quarter of carbon dioxide emissions come from cars and trucks. So the effect of transportation on our city's air quality, as well as the global environment, cannot be ignored.

Reducing each vehicle's contributions to dirty, smoggy air is especially important considering how fast Knoxville is sprawling to the suburbs, forcing its residents to drive more. Professors from Rutgers University, Cornell University, and a non-profit named Smart Growth America recently released a study that named Knoxville the eight-most sprawling metropolitan region, and the metro area with the lowest residential density. Because Knoxville's density is so low—an average of 403 people per square mile—people own more cars and drive far more than residents in the average city. Our average household owns 1.84 cars, higher than the 1.65 national average. And less than two percent of people here walk to work.

As study author Reid Ewing of Rutgers speaks to Metro Pulse over the phone, he clicks away on his computer, calling up the facts and figures that describe Knoxville's out-of-control car culture. One important measurement, he says, is vehicle miles per capita, per day. The clicking stops.

"Oh my God," he exclaims, then pauses. "That is really high."

Turns out the average Knoxvillian drives 35.6 miles a day. Only Nashville and Houston beat us on this count, and only slightly. Our rate is all the more disturbing when you realize that such figures count all residents, not just drivers. Ewing says a more reasonable figure would be about 25—"under 30, for sure." Los Angeles, believe it or not, falls in at a comfortable 22.7.

"The more sprawling the area, the more vehicles people need," Ewing says. "People have to drive further, so they have to drive more automobiles. Kids get cars when they're 16, so there's no alternative. It creates a vicious cycle."

Given Knoxville's dependence on the almighty automobile, many people who move here are surprised that the county doesn't do emissions testing, a process that Will Calloway of the Tennessee Environmental Council says is costly but important in urban areas. Nashville and Memphis both have emissions testing, charging $7 per year per vehicle to conduct the short test.

Since the 1970s, the EPA has required car manufacturers to meet standards that have reduced emissions by 75 to 90 percent. But while that shiny new Honda or Chevy might have met EPA standards when it left the plant, its components may deteriorate over time.

Most communities that enforce car inspections and maintenance, including Nashville and Memphis, are required to do so by the EPA because their ozone levels reached a high enough range. Surprisingly, Knox County did not fall in that category, earning the slightly more illustrious title of "marginal."

It earned that surprisingly good classification based on ozone measurements taken over several one-hour periods. In 2004, however, the EPA will decide which counties do not comply with a new, eight-hour standard for ozone similar to the yardstick the American Lung Association now uses to rank cities. If this year's data doesn't vary dramatically from last year's, Knox County will land on that EPA list. So emissions testing could be on its way.

However, Overly doesn't put too much stock in the wonders of emission testing. "The best thing is to increase fuel efficiency," he says.

As coordinator of the East Tennessee Clean Fuels Coalition, Overly also promotes the use of alternative fuels. The cleanest of these fuels are propane and natural gas, which produce fewer emissions than gasoline in almost every category of pollutant. Some ethanol is produced in the region, he says, but the process of producing it is energy intensive and, therefore, not as kind to the environment. In fact, an ethanol plant in Loudon County creates ozone that makes its way to Knoxville.

At the moment, there are no pumping stations for natural gas in East Tennessee; consumers can purchase pumps online that draw natural gas from their houses to fill their gas tanks. These pumps cost $3,000 to $6,000, but smaller pumps costing $2,000 will be available next year. Propane can be purchased in Knoxville, by the tank from U-Haul, or by long-term contract from propane dealers. Overly says while initial costs of purchasing propane- or natural gas-fueled cars may be higher, these fuels cost less per gallon than gasoline, and thus save the driver money over the long haul. It will be some time before Knoxville drivers start reaping such benefits.

"East Tennessee has a lot of work to do," Overly says, noting that there are cities in other states with as many as 20 natural gas stations. Entire states are drivable on alternative fuel—Minnesota on natural gas, most of Texas on propane. Right now, a Knoxvillian who managed to fill up on alternative fuel would probably have to return home before his tank was empty.

The Energy Policy Act of 1992 requires federal agencies to purchase alt-fuel vehicles, and several years later Congress expanded the act to include state agencies. So the Oak Ridge National Laboratory fills 49 vehicles with an ethanol-gasoline mixture. UT owns about 100 flex-fuel vehicles, but because of a loophole in the law, continues to fill them with gasoline, Overly says. KUB, which doesn't fall under the law's jurisdiction, fills 80 percent of its maintenance trucks with natural gas.

Cars aren't the only vehicles contributing to air pollution, of course. Diesel-run vehicles such as buses and 18-wheelers contribute most of transportation's share of ozone. Emissions from these vehicles can be reduced using ultra low-sulfur diesel, bio diesel (which is derived from plants such as soybeans), or in some cases, a switch to alternative fuels.

While only five to 10 percent of sulfur pollution comes from transportation, ultra low-sulfur diesel also reduces nitrogen oxide and sulfur oxide emissions. The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy is planning a pilot program to use this fuel on Atlanta school buses, with expansion to other cities possible.

UT's day and night van services, revamped under the university's Master Plan for development, will use Knoxville Area Transit propane-fueled vehicles starting next month, KAT general manager Mark Hairr says, and KAT plans to use small, alternative-fueled buses for some of its own routes in the future.

In addition, a Knoxville-based company, IdleAire, has pioneered a system to reduce diesel emissions from idling trucks. Usually, when truck drivers take a rest stop, they leave their engines running. If those truckers stop at rest stations equipped with IdleAire technology, they can run their heating and cooling from electricity, thus reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 70 percent and reducing NOx, particulate matter, volatile organic compounds and carbon monoxide emissions by 97 percent, according to IdleAire spokesman John Doty. Only about 100 IdleAire units are now in place, 54 at the Petro Stopping Center on Watt Road and the rest in New York. But Doty says IdleAire intends to install 100 machines in Atlanta in early December, with more coming to Nashville and West Memphis, Ark., soon.

Solid Waste
From Refuse to Reuse

People who live in knoxville and Knox County recycle. At least some of them do; that is, if they are willing to take the time to sift out recyclables and take them to one of the 11 drop-off centers in the city or the eight in the county. Those who make the effort are probably responding to our region's dwindling natural resources and shrinking landfill space. According to the forest protection group Dogwood Alliance, the paper industry in the South deforests an area the size of New Jersey every year. Manufacturing generally uses more energy than recycling, thereby increasing air pollution and dependence on foreign oil. BioCycle: Journal of Composting and Organics Recycling reports Tennessee and eight other states will top off their landfills in five to 10 years. (The other 41 states either expect more than 10 years of additional landfill use, or don't have enough data to determine their landfill capacity.) But neither Knoxville nor Knox County has invested a lot of money in an aggressive curbside recycling program. Not like Nashville.

"We wanted to implement a program that captured the largest amount of the waste stream for the smallest amount of money," says Chace Anderson, Nashville's director of waste management, uttering a statement that's almost his mantra.

However, implementing curbside recycling wasn't cheap. Nashville Mayor Bill Purcell had to come up with $1.3 million per year to pay for a fleet of new collecting trucks and 130,000 recycling carts, plus over $1 million for an education and advertising campaign.

Anderson says that the new program will work because it takes a pragmatic approach to recycling. It focuses on fiber, which makes up the largest part of the waste stream (40 percent), and cans, which constitute an additional eight percent. The program might not meet the expectations of die-hard recyclers, who would like their glass and plastic picked up as well. But Anderson says Nashville's program is more sustainable.

"In other cities, recycling budgets are vulnerable to being severely cut when economic times are not so good," he says. He notes that some cities expected to actually make money on recycling glass and plastic, but when economic conditions changed, those cities ended up paying for their recycling programs.

"You're not going to have a curbside program that pays for itself," Anderson says, but to get the best return on their investment, cities must make their recycling user-friendly. "No recycling program is going to succeed without an education program."

So far, things are working in Nashville. According to Anderson, about half of the city's households are setting out their recycling—an average of 43 pounds of material per household per month. Anderson and Purcell are pleased with these numbers, especially since the city just finished delivering carts to residents last month.

But while the Music City's recycling and solid waste coordinators are all smiles, those in Knoxville and Knox County find plenty to gripe about.

"No, hell no, this city's not environmentally friendly," Megan Brown, the Knox County recycling coordinator, says. Her boss, solid waste director John Evans, describes the local state of recycling as "bogus, a sham, a shell game," chuckling only slightly. Evans says politics and locals' "independent" nature make it difficult to reduce the amount of waste we send to landfills. In addition, the cost of disposing of a ton of garbage here is low—$30, as opposed to the $50 cost in many parts of the country.

"We still have some of the lowest landfill fees in the country. If you've got ample space and low cost, people look at you like you're nuts [if you try to implement curbside recycling]," he says, in apparent disagreement with BioCycle's figures.

Knoxville's solid waste reduction specialist, John Homa, also serves as vice president of the Tennessee Recycling Coalition. He says a potential waste-reduction program "would definitely have to be a cost-effective program for us to get into it." A pilot curbside recycling program that started in 1989 and ran for several years picked up glass, plastic, newspapers and cans from 5,000 city residents, but it proved too costly to continue. John Evans, who then served as public relations director for the now-defunct Metropolitan Knoxville Solid Waste Authority, says trucks and bins cost about $54,000 per year, with education costs in the tens of thousands of dollars, and administrative costs additional.

Under Tennessee law, all counties are obligated to reduce deposits at Class I landfills—that's where your notebooks and banana peels go if you don't recycle or compost them—by 25 percent. Knox County has done this, partially by recycling, but also by diverting some waste to landfills that are used for demolition debris.

The city is under no such reduction mandate, according to Homa. In 2001, the city produced 126,000 tons of waste, a slight drop from the year before. The Class I numbers dropped slightly, but Homa says those reductions may not be significant. The amount of recycling collected by convenience centers has remained steady, at about 4,800 tons per year.

"If I had a wish list, yes, I'd definitely put [curbside recycling] on there," Brown says. But she notes that many cities have put a lot of money into curbside programs they eventually abandoned. "I think the really honest-to-goodness way to get people to start recycling is to go with a pay-as-you-throw system."

Evans also promotes a pay-as-you-throw system to redirect waste from landfills to recycling. He says many city residents hold the mistaken belief that trash pick-up is free, even though the cost of that service is embedded in their property taxes. County residents pay property taxes to fund garbage drop-off centers, but they must pay companies like Waste Connections (formerly BFI) and Waste Management to have their refuse picked up.

Athens, Ga., uses a fairly typical PAYT system. Residents choose the smallest garbage can that accommodates their needs, either 32-, 64-, or 96-gallon. The bigger the container, the more the customer pays per month. Evans says a PAYT program in the Knoxville area could take any number of forms—it's unclear how private contractors would be involved, or even whether government would institute county-wide garbage pick-up. Bill Park, a UT professor of agricultural economics who has studied PAYT extensively, says these programs are usually, but not always, complemented by curbside recycling.

Such a system would not be without risks; Evans says studies show a six percent initial increase in illegal dumping following PAYT implementation, though enforcement can bring that number down. And, he says, instituting pay-as-you-throw has cost some politicians their jobs.

Still, Evans has plenty of examples to look to if he wishes to persuade the county of the program's feasibility. About 4,000 communities around the country are using pay-as-you-throw now, and a Duke University study finds the average PAYT system reduces waste by 40 percent.

"I think it'll happen eventually," Evans says. "We are nowhere near there [now]."

There is one recycling arena in which Knoxville has done pretty well already, and local institutions have even shown the way to the region and nation. That's in the realm of electronics recycling. Americans throw away 1.5 million computers and 120 million cell phones each year, and those products release lead, cadmium, and mercury, which could find their way into groundwater. UT's Center for Clean Products and Clean Technologies has started a process called NEPSI—the National Electronics Product Stewardship Initiative—bringing together government, non-profits, and manufacturers. So far the stakeholders have agreed they will institute a surcharge to cover the recycling cost of every electronics item they sell. The UT Center's senior research associate, Catherine Wilt, says NEPSI will lobby for national electronics recycling legislation, so in the future all electronics may carry such fees.

Wilt says she hopes NEPSI will come to a final agreement, including plans on how to make their products more recyclable, by this summer.

"Making products that are really designed to be recycled is a big step," she says. Of course, that's a large part of what the Center for Clean Products does. "We do a lot of fairly cutting-edge research on how to design products and how to make products that are environmentally better...and how we can design public policies that are incentives for products to be cleaner and better designed.

"As a research region, we really have a whole lot going for us," Wilt says, citing projects at ORNL and TVA. She also notes that Knoxville hosts several companies in the business of recycling. One example is the Oak Ridge National Recycle Center, a private enterprise independent of ORNL that recycles computers from around the Southeast. Another is Knoxville-based NuCycle Technologies, which recycles ink-jet cartridges.

The city also receives Wilt's praise. "They're doing some fabulous stuff with electronics collection in town," she says, mentioning a recent drive in collaboration with Knox County, Goodwill Industries and commercial recyclers that collected 17 tons of cell phones and computers from the public. It's the third drive the city has held. "That is fairly unique," she says. "In that way, Knoxville is a leader."