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Seven Days

Wednesday, December 11
Dick Bigler, roundly praised for getting the Knoxville Convention Center built on time and under budget, says he's going to Chicago to honcho the massive, $800 million expansion of McCormick Place. We know Bigler has worked minor miracles on projects in the Middle East and China. But has he an inkling of the chicanery involved in Chicago public-project politics?
A legislative subcommittee votes to require more information on contracts the state enters without competitive bidding. Do the members really want to know how many buddy-system contracts are in the mix?

Thursday, December 12
School officials find a "hit list" threatening to kill four sixth-graders at Cedar Bluff Middle School and call for a security crackdown at the school. This isn't Littleton, Colo., but the suburban demographic at Cedar Bluff is eerily similar.

Sunday, December 15
The Vol baseball team, playing exhibition games in Havana, is treated royally by Cubans on the streets of the city. Are the boys in orange really surprised to find all Cubans don't wear fatigues and hurl epithets about Yanquis in a cloud of cigar smoke?
Vol senior Jon Higgins heaves in a half-court three-pointer to beat Georgia Tech by one on the road in Atlanta with no time left on the clock. Considering how many times UT was nipped at the buzzer last year, could this be a reversal of fortune?

Monday, December 16
The TBI begins investigating reports that a quarter of the residents at a Claiborne County nursing home tested positive for marijuana in their bloodstreams. Is this just the start of a trend, with the aging former love children of the pot-smoking '60s?

Tuesday, December 17
Officials discuss the closure of a two-year-old motel on Route 72 off I-75 in Loudon County because of a "mysterious mold."
What's the mystery? The building's just down the road from the area's biggest mushroom operation.

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:
Leave it up to a local media-type to claim the prize on one of our more obvious Knoxville Founds. Of course, we did catch some of you napping, because the picture isn't just of the Gay Street Bridge, but of the Gay Street Bridge in its demure "Under-Construction" attire. But there's no pulling the wool over the eyes of reporter Brennan Robison of WATE-TV 6, who was the first respondent to note the bridge's condition. (Also, we like to suck up to the visual media types whenever possible because we secretly envy them.) For breaking this story, we offer to Brennan the book Tennessee Political Humor: Some of the Jokes You Voted For, by state Senator Roy Herron and L.H "Cotton" Ivy. Perhaps Breenan can work something from the book into some color commentary.

Sewage Happens
City surprises KUB with $2,500 fine for discharge violation

It might be seen as a turning point in the way the Knoxville government treats Mother Nature. Then again, it might be viewed as a shot across the bow from the Ashe administration to the city's largest utility.

This month, the city fined the Knoxville Utilities Board for doing something it has been doing for many years: dumping raw sewage into a creek during a heavy rain.

The specific occurrence for which the city's engineering department penalized KUB occurred on Dec. 5 at Inskip Park, near the intersection of I-75 and Merchant Drive. According to the engineering department, on that day, gallons and gallons of raw sewage overflowed from a manhole in the park and into nearby Second Creek.

"This is not something that we can ignore, since federal law requires us to do whatever the city can do to clean up the creeks and streams," says Sam Parnell, director of the city's engineering department. "We're not treating KUB any differently than we treat anyone else."

Inskip Park is the only problem for which the city has fined KUB, but it is not the only instance that the city has cited in a series of "notices of violation" to the utility. There are, in fact, 10 other places for which the city has issued notices to KUB for sewage overflow problems during the last month. The addresses range from 7201 Strawberry Plains Pike to 4102 Holston Drive to 7112 Shadyland Drive. One of the sewage-overflow violations took place near the Cedar Lane home of Margie Martin, whose situation was discussed at some length in a Dec. 5 Metro Pulse cover story.

Parnell said the city fined KUB for the Inskip Park violation, as opposed to other violations on which it has not yet fined KUB, because the sewage overflows were well documented there. "We have been out there several times and have photos and documentation that shows where the overflow took place and entered the city's storm-water system," he says.

KUB chief executive officer Larry Fleming said he was surprised by the penalty and called it "extremely unfortunate." He said his utility has taken considerable effort to upgrade the city's wastewater and sewage system since the city dumped those functions on KUB in 1987. The more than $100 million in investments include upgrades at treatment plants and the replacement of miles and miles of sewage lines that are either too small, designed poorly, or deteriorating. "We have a long-term capital plan to address sanitary sewage overflows," Fleming says.

Fleming said he was especially disappointed about the penalty because the Inskip Park problem is one KUB is currently working on. The way the city designed the wastewater system many years ago, the main trunk line that flows north to south, following the general course of Second Creek, takes a series of 90-degree turns just south of Inskip Park. "I don't know why it does that," Fleming says. "I don't think anyone who is still alive knows why it does that. But that's the main cause of the overflows at Inskip Park." KUB is designing a major upgrade in the area under which the line will be moved and expanded from 18 inches in diameter to 24 inches in diameter. Fleming says the project will be under construction by March and will cost $3.5 million. "The city knows that we are working on this," Fleming says.

The city has never fined KUB for a sewage-discharge problem, and Fleming says he does not understand why the city has chosen to assess this penalty on KUB now. Parnell says the reason has to do with how the city has slowly upgraded its storm-water program over the years. "We didn't really have a storm-water program until about five or six years ago, and during our first few years we have preferred to work through education instead of through enforcement," he says. "We have done that with KUB."

Parnell says the city has fined KUB under the authorization of the city's National Pollution Discharge Elimination System Permit, a permit that was created a few years ago as a part of an update to the national Clean Water Act. "We often fine construction sites for causing a lot of erosion and we often fine commercial operations for dumping hazardous materials," Parnell says. "This is another type of point-source pollution."

In addition to getting rid of the discharges, the city's notice of violation requires KUB to take steps to stop the sewage discharges and to notify the city in the future when such discharges take place. "We are supposed to be notified every time this happens, and that has not been taking place," Parnell says. "Of course, we do find out about overflows because people call our hotline and tell us, but that's not the way we are supposed to hear about them."

Fleming said that KUB notifies the Department of Environment and Conservation about overflows. "The city asserts that it has jurisdiction to regulate KUB, and we maintain that is not the case. We maintain that the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation has jurisdiction." Because of this jurisdictional issue, Fleming said he wasn't sure if KUB would pay the fine. "That will be something that I will discuss with our lawyers during the next few weeks," he says.

Fleming said that overflows have been a problem in recent weeks because of heavy rains. He said that Inskip Park overflow is probably the worst overflow problem in the system caused by capacity or design issues. "A lot of the other ones are caused by debris, tree roots, or just deterioration in the sewer lines," he says. "The problem on Cedar Lane, for example, is caused because the line is too small and also deteriorated, which is why we are replacing it."

In spite of the many upgrades that have already taken place and that are continuing, however, Fleming said that he doesn't think he will ever be able to assure the public that sewage overflows will never take place in heavy rains. "The law of the land is that no overflow is permitted, but the truth of the matter is that no system in the country can achieve that," he says. "It is an admirable goal that we seek, but it is one that I don't think we can ever reach."

—Bill Carey

Radio Silence
WNCW loses its Knoxville translator

On Jan. 1, Knoxville will lose the eclectic public radio station, WNCW. An undisclosed station will take its place sometime afterwards.

Based in Spindale, N.C., WNCW broadcasts from a 10-watt translator in Knoxville at 96.7 FM. The station has been using the translator for about seven or eight years, says general manager, David Gordon. It cost about $2,300 a year, he says.

The translator's owner, Dwight Magnuson, told WNCW he wanted to sell it about a year ago because he now lives in Idaho. "I offered it to them back in January and it sat on deaf ears for about six months. Then they sent me a letter saying they'd give me $5,000 for it. Which was kind of an insult," Magnuson says.

In the meantime, Magnuson had put the translator on the market and found another buyer—a radio station he wouldn't divulge to Metro Pulse.

Gordon says it took so long to make an offer because Isothermal Community College owns the license, and he had to get approval from the college's board of directors to negotiate.

Magnuson gave WNCW a chance to match the other station's offer, but at $50,000 it was out of the public station's range, Gordon says.

"There's no way we can justify $50,000 for a translator in Knoxville. We have a weekly audience of about 4,000 and a membership of about 160 [in the Knoxville area]," Gordon says. "It just did not make good business sense to put $50,000 into it. If we were to put a new translator there, it certainly wouldn't cost $50,000. It might cost $10,000."

Although it wasn't one of the most popular radio stations in Knoxville, WNCW does have a devoted following here, especially among serious music fans. It offered a mix of Americana, bluegrass, roots, and world music, as well as some rock 'n' roll and National Public Radio programs.

With its main transmitter and five translators, the station has an unusually large reach, with a presence in Charlotte, Greeneville, Boone, and Beech Mountain. But, the station is now being reined in. It is also facing a battle over its translator in Charlotte, N.C. A group of listeners has sprung up to try to fight off these challenges. Their web site is www.SaveWNCW.org.

Some Knoxville residents might still be able to tune in at 88.7 FM, the station's primary frequency. It also broadcasts over the web at www.wncw.org.

"That's really the best we can do right now," Gordon says. "I feel bad for the folks over there who have supported us, but the situation is what it is."

The Federal Communications Commission is not now accepting applications for new translators. But when they do, Gordon says they'll look at putting one back in Knoxville. "I don't believe this means we're out of Knoxville forever."

—Joe Tarr