Author: Andrew Wilkins

I-69, the proposed superhighway that will link Canada and Mexico, will pass through Shelby County. This much we know. Whether it will pass through Memphis along I-240 between Midtown and downtown or through the county along Route 385 has yet to be determined.

Though I-69 is not expected to be finished until the end of the decade, the highway’s route has already become an issue among some Shelby Countians.

Jerry Palazolo, a Midtowner, says it’s important for I-69 to be near Memphis, but he objects to the highway running through the heart of the city. Palazolo contends it will result in more noise, pollution, and congestion in an area that’s already saturated with the effects of highway traffic.

But some environmentalists say the road will have a negative impact no matter which route it takes. “The environment will be damned either way they go,” says Scott Banbury of the Sierra Club. “Bringing so many new trucks per day through town will impact air quality, and taking it through the county will destroy wetlands and lead to more sprawl.”

Banbury says the Sierra Club opposes the project entirely. They feel the money would be better spent encouraging barge and rail traffic and improving public transportation. By the time the road is completed, Banbury says, limited oil reserves could make moving goods by truck much more expensive.

Dennis Cook, assistant chief engineer of planning and development for the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT), says I-69 is in the national interest and will spur the local economy. The project is right on schedule, he says, adding that official public meetings will begin next spring and the first draft of the project’s environmental study should be ready by fall 2002.

While TDOT officials will consider the road’s impact on air quality and the landscape, Cook says I-69 must happen for the economic good of the nation. “I-69 is the NAFTA [North American Free Trade Agreement] route,” Cook says. “And because of the impact on international trade, and other economic benefits, we are going forward with it.” He says public input serves to raise issues planners might have otherwise missed.

Millions more transportation dollars will come to the Mid-South thanks to recently passed federal legislation, Cook says. Startup funds have been assigned for a bus and rail terminal, a runway extension at the airport, and a new bridge over the Mississippi. The city will also receive $36 million for its public transit system, plus $19 million to extend the trolley into the Medical Center. Mississippi will get money to reroute Highway 304 to link up 64 and I-55 as part of the I-69 project.

Supporters of I-69 point out that many major cities have two interstate loops. But opponents say metro areas with two loops, like Atlanta, have experienced dramatic unchecked growth, leading to a significant loss of tree cover and crippling traffic jams.

Banbury fears the suburban loop will also take warehouse jobs from the city and open up more wetlands to development. The Loosahatchie River bottoms would likely be bisected by the 385 route. And taking the road through the city will only increase the city’s air pollution problems, Banbury says.

How bad are Memphis’ pollution problems? Diane Arnst, the technical manager of the pollution control section for the Memphis/Shelby County Health Department, says the region is in compliance with most federal air-quality regulations. But she says we wouldn’t meet new standards (currently being evaluated in the courts) on ozone, and the county would be borderline with regard to fine particulate matter — pollution indexes that are worsened by automobile traffic. Arnst says each major road-building project must be evaluated before it’s approved. “[Projects] cannot prevent attainment or maintenance of the national air-quality standards,” she adds.

Others say it’s too soon to make a judgment on I-69’s environmental impact. Carter Gray, an administrator of regional services for the Department of Planning and Development, says that though total automobile miles traveled in Shelby County are increasing by 4 percent a year, cars are running cleaner. “If tier-two gasoline is made the standard,” he adds, “the resulting decrease in emissions would be like taking a third of the county’s cars off the road.”

Gray says opponents should look at the environmental impact of the entire transportation system rather than one road. “All this new traffic has got to come from somewhere,” he says. “[I-69] could reduce traffic in one place and bring it to another. And if it makes travel time quicker, with less congestion and waiting for red lights, then that’s an environmental boon.”

Local officials say the recent city/county measure approving the possibility of cell towers on parkland merely adds protective provisions to an existing ordinance. But some park supporters and neighborhood organizations say they are violating the public trust for profit.

“Most people think parks … should be a commerce-free zone,” says Don Richardson, chair of the local Sierra Club chapter. “I think that it’s improper for the city council to launch a sneak attack on parks for commercial gain.”

Voicing concerns similar to those of the 30 protesters at city hall on the day the ordinance was passed, Richardson says he has received dozens of phone calls from citizens concerned about the aesthetics of the towers. Towers typically reach 40 feet above the treeline, and opponents also cite the possibility of adverse health effects associated with cell technology.

Skyrocketing from 6.4 million to 118.4 million users in just a decade, the wireless technology of cell phones and laptop computers is now an integral part of American business and communication. And in an effort to provide service, more and more towers are popping up around the country.

Russell Blumenthal, a partner of the cell-tower company Tower Ventures, says that while most of Memphis is covered, additional towers may have to be built in some areas to meet increasing demand. Blumenthal says one of his company’s towers can host up to eight cell carriers simultaneously. Such technology can help prevent situations like the one at Summer and I-240, where three towers mar the skyline.

One of two industry representatives on the three-person committee responsible for writing the cell-tower ordinance, Blumenthal is in favor of cell towers in public spaces, including parks.

“It’s a great thing for the city,” he says. “The suburbs have been doing this for years. When we build on city property, the money goes into the city coffers and as landlord the city gets to decide on how [the tower] looks and where it goes.”

The city of Germantown is pleased with the approximately 30 towers located on public property, says Forrest Owens, a city park official. Germantown receives $21,000 per year and a city ordinance mandates towers be less than 100 feet tall and forbids multiple towers in one area. The biggest problem, Owens says, isn’t the towers themselves but the 500-square-foot fenced compound at the base.

According to Richardson, Memphis has other options besides using parkland. He says there is transfer technology that can use pre-existing utility poles, but city officials don’t want Memphis Light, Gas, and Water receiving revenue that could go to the city. Richardson also contends that the city’s eagerness to enter the cell-tower business could also saddle it with outdated technology.

James Vaughan, manager of industry operations for the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, says the future of wireless is digital technology, which can operate with shorter, less obtrusive antennas. “These new antennas,” Vaughan says, “can be installed on the side of a building. They’re stealthier.”

Vaughan says the third generation of wireless technology will make the Internet available anywhere by laptop or PalmPilot. But while the new antennas will be less invasive, he says they won’t necessarily replace the older equipment. Until low-impact technology is the standard, however, providers will continue to place their towers wherever they are allowed.

In the River Oaks neighborhood of East Memphis, Hazel Lewis and her neighbors narrowly avoided having the city’s first cell tower in a residential area. One of her neighbors cut a deal with a tower provider, but residents organized and rallied in opposition to the agreement. In response to their complaints, the city placed the tower on municipal property outside the neighborhood.

Lewis says she believes cell towers should be banned from residential neighborhoods for health concerns, aesthetics, and the loss of property values.

One researcher has said that cell technology is history’s biggest biological experiment. And some governing bodies are beginning to look deeper into claims of health problems associated with cell technology. California, Palm Beach, Florida, and New Zealand have banned cell-phone towers near schools. Italy and Switzerland have recently slashed permitted emission levels.

The Federal Drug Administration and the cell-phone industry claim cell phones and cell-phone towers are safe, but researcher George Carlo disagrees. He has spent six years and millions of dollars researching the issue and has broken ranks with the industry by saying cell phones may not be safe.

“The wireless industry has not taken steps to protect consumers,” he wrote to the FDA. His report cited higher brain-cancer rates, tumors of the auditory nerve, and genetic damage among cell-phone users. Cell-phone critics also point to a study that found a two- to four-fold increase in lymphoma in mice exposed to cell-phone-type radiation.

Even if you believe your government and the cell-phone industry, you also have to discount the instincts of trial lawyers, who smell blood in the water. Attorney Peter Angelos, who has won billions from the asbestos and tobacco industries, recently filed a multimillion dollar class-action lawsuit against cell-phone providers. He claims he wouldn’t have taken the case unless he thought there was a 90 percent chance of winning.

Can cell-phone technology lead to long-term health problems? Are we experimenting with our health by using wireless technology? Depends on whom you want to believe. The bottom line: It’s your call.

You can e-mail Andrew Wilkins at letters@memphisflyer.com.

I sold my car last week, choosing to rely on public transportation and my bicycle. To show support for my decision, the man at the bike shop gave me a pair of black socks emblazoned with the motto “carsrcoffins.com.”

The Web site is one of a growing number of voices criticizing America’s love affair with the automobile. Cars kill 40,000 Americans every year in accidents, cause pollution, and lead to urban sprawl and a reliance on foreign oil.

Public transportation, carpooling, and cycling can alleviate many of these problems, but in Memphis, where a recent study found 91.8 percent of work trips are made by automobile, changing transportation habits won’t be easy.

Our reliance on cars is a significant factor in Memphis’ air pollution problem, says Carter Gray, an administrator of regional services for the Department of Planning and Development. The city has been ranked in the top 12 of the nation’s worst air by the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and seven times last summer the health department warned Memphians to stay indoors to avoid dangerous ozone levels.

Ozone is created when automobile exhaust is heated by the sun. It can lead to inflammation of the lungs, asthma, and a host of other chronic health problems. New federal ozone regulations are set to take effect in the next few years. At its current emission levels, Memphis wouldn’t meet the new health regulations, Gray says.

“We have to meet this higher standard and money doesn’t enter into the picture,” Gray says, “because the Clean Air Act says we have to use an absolute scientific standard rather than cost to set the requirements. It’s like the American Lung Association says: ‘Breathing is not optional.'”

Since cars contribute about 25 percent of atmospheric ozone — along with 180 other air toxins, carbon monoxide, and particulate matter — the federal government is looking to public transportation to help reduce the number of cars on the road. The Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) has received federal money to increase the efficiency of its bus system and lengthen downtown trolley lines into the medical district.

I wanted to attend a meeting on a planned Memphis light-rail system, so I called MATA (274-MATA) for bus information and learned that a bus heading downtown passes a stop near my house in Vollintine-Evergreen about every 20 minutes. Right on time, a bus cut through the haze of auto exhaust. It took about half an hour to reach Central Station. The cost was $1.50.

“As old and as disabled as I am, public transportation is the best way to get around,” says sculptor Luther Hampton. He says the buses run on time and the drivers are helpful and friendly.

Tom Fox, MATA director of planning and capital improvements, says for the last six months MATA has been less than five minutes late for 97 to 98 percent of its stops.

Fox says MATA plans to have a light-rail system up and running in about 20 years. The preliminary plan would consist of three loops: north, serving downtown, north Memphis, Frayser, and Millington; southeast, serving downtown, Midtown, East Memphis, Germantown, and Collierville; and south, serving downtown, South Memphis, Whitehaven, Horn Lake, and Southaven.

Specific routes and technologies are being studied with local funds, Fox says, but the federal government’s transportation budget should provide about 80 percent of the project’s cost. Fox says only about 20 percent of the federal transportation budget goes to public transportation but the percentage is increasing every year. Fox says MATA is also working on suburban transit centers and mini-bus stations in the city’s outlying areas, which are designed to make routing more efficient.

“There is more and more interest in public transit as it becomes more difficult and costly to build roads,” Fox says.

Another alternative to an automobile is carpooling. The Memphis Area Ride Share program (379-7840) hooks up commuters to help reduce the number of cars on the highway. The service costs from $45 to $70 per month, depending on the route.

Denny Henke has another idea, and it wouldn’t cost millions or take 20 years to implement. Henke would like to see the city treat bicycles as a serious transportation option. The city has no bike lanes and few businesses provide racks where bikes can be parked.

“Central Avenue has an extra shoulder and it wouldn’t take much to paint in a bike lane if the desire was there,” Henke says. “There is no education for bikers or cars. I see bikers riding against traffic and that’s not the way to do it.”

Increasing infrastructure costs, higher pollution rates, and wasted commuting time are waking some Americans up to the problems of car-based cities, says David Ciscel, a University of Memphis professor and urban-sprawl researcher.

Urban sprawl began in the 1950s with the creation of suburbs accessible only by automobile, Ciscel says. In the 1990s, low energy prices and general prosperity compounded the problem. In Memphis, as the city grew geographically the population remained fairly constant. In a recent study, Ciscel found 91.8 percent of Memphians use a car to get to work. Suburban dwellers commute into town for white-collar jobs while city dwellers travel to the suburbs for service jobs.

“‘New urbanism’ is a way of thinking that calls for integrated living,” Ciscel says. “Which means having housing, work, and commercial destinations all within a short distance, so we can get away from the automobile. It took us half a century to create this problem and it will probably take just as long to fix it.”

You can e-mail Andrew Wilkins at letters@memphisflyer.com.

The recent rash of uterine cancer in young girls isn’t the first time illness has visited the neighborhood near the Defense Depot in South Memphis, says Doris Bradshaw. She says cancer is common in her community and readily cites several instances of trees and dogs in the area suddenly and mysteriously dying.

Federal officials — armed with two studies and a litany of explanations — are telling area residents the depot isn’t to blame, but some are questioning the government’s testing methods and point to the community’s history of illness.

“They didn’t investigate the [health] history of the community, so their report shouldn’t be called a health evaluation,” Bradshaw says. “It should be called a site evaluation, because it tests if the depot is safe for industry.”

The Defense Depot is a 640-acre compound used by the army since the beginning of World War II to warehouse supplies — including some chemical weapons. The depot was declared a federal superfund site due to heavy chemical contamination. The dangerous chemicals are being removed to make way for industry.

Though her combative and repeated calls for justice have been discounted by some in the mainstream environmental community, the 40-year-old Bradshaw isn’t alone in her belief that the depot is responsible for the neighborhood’s health problems.

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) crafted a report designed only to calm the fears of the neighborhood, says Franklin Dmitryev, an environmental activist who has studied both of the agency’s reports and written extensively about the depot.

The ATSDR took the army’s records on dangerous chemicals, determined how or if they could leave the compound, the likelihood of exposure, and the possibility of illness due to these exposures. Each abstraction was done with theoretical computer modeling.

Based on their methods, Dmitryev isn’t surprised the ATSDR found no cause for alarm. “With over 100 chemicals identified at the site, there are no data to determine effects of exposure to some of them and almost zero to determine effects of exposure to combinations of them. But the assessment uses comparison levels based only on wild guesses to conclude that there can be no harm to people,” Dmitryev wrote in an issue of News and Letters. “Uncertainty is stressed when it means that we can’t be sure anyone was harmed. But uncertainty is downplayed when it means we can’t be sure people are not harmed.” The report doesn’t take into account that children are more susceptible to the effects of chemical exposure, he adds.

Dmitryev cites the case where a bar graph compared the safe level of a potentially deadly chemical with the amount found at the depot. At first glance the graph seemed to indicate levels twice as high as deemed safe, but when Dmitryev looked closer he realized the numbers in the graph were depicted as a logarithm, meaning the presence of the pesticide was actually at least 40 times the safe level.

Senior ATSDR environmental epidemiologist John Crellan says the dose is the determining factor when it comes to proving illness and the data don’t prove anyone has been harmed. While conceding some contamination has reached the groundwater, Crellan says the cancer rates in the neighborhood are within a normal range.

He does admit the government’s testing only covers the potential for exposure in the past 10 years and that the only off-site soil testing was done on the fence-line of the depot.

Chemicals wash out of the environment, Bradshaw says, but their effects often don’t show up until years later. Just because the government can’t find chemicals today, she says, doesn’t mean they aren’t to blame for the neighborhood’s health problems.

Dmitryev says the cancer rates are misleading because the rates are adjusted against the national average for black people, who are more likely to be exposed to chemicals. He also says the results were watered down because they included parts of the neighborhood not likely to be exposed to chemicals.

Defense Depot neighbors aren’t the only ones to have complaints about the ATSDR, says Stephen Lester, science director for the Center for Health, Environment, and Justice, an organization that helps citizens fight chemical pollution.

He says in 1991 an independent government study found 80 percent of ATSDR’s health assessments were of “poor or uneven quality” and many were “seriously deficient as public health analysis.” The agency was forced to redo many of these studies and claims to have mended its ways, but the only significant change is a stepped-up public relations campaign, Lester says.

The ATSDR reports are also misleading because they don’t bring to light gaps in the available research, Lester says. For example, they know contaminants have reached the groundwater but haven’t taken the next step and tested the nearby wells.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue appears to be the strategy on which ATSDR operates. In doing so, ATSDR avoids the hard issues of what happens when people are exposed to toxic chemicals from contaminated sites,” Lester wrote in his group’s newsletter.

Lester also worries that the ATSDR denial reflex could compromise our nation’s ability to respond to a chemical or biological terrorist attack. The agency initially dismissed the risk of dust from the World Trade Center collapse but was later forced to investigate its effect on victims.

Although cancer rates since 1950 have increased by 42 percent, public health researchers still don’t have the tools to track outbreaks of disease. The United States Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) wants to network public health agencies to allow citizens to find out what kind of diseases occur frequently in their community. Then they could compare this data against the toxic release inventory available online and come to their own conclusions about the effect of local chemicals.

“The depot is a great example of the need for more information to establish a link, if there is a link, between industry and public health effects,” says Jill Johnson of the PIRG Southern field office.

Tennessee industries released 72 million tons of toxic chemicals with links to neurological and developmental disabilities. Shelby County ranks in the top 25 U.S. counties for these same chemicals, according to PIRG data.

Drawn into the struggle for environmental justice after her mother died of cancer, Bradshaw continues to fight. Organizing within her community and with other poisoned neighborhoods around the country, she has seen the pattern of abuse against poor and minority neighborhoods. She plans a lawsuit and is demanding a health clinic in her neighborhood, door-to-door health assessment, and real data concerning risks of exposure.

“We shouldn’t have to prove anything. The Defense Depot, as a good neighbor, should prove to us they didn’t hurt us,” Bradshaw says. “African-American history — through slavery, discrimination, Agent Orange, and the Tuskegee syphilis experiments — shows us not to trust our government. Period.”

You can e-mail Andrew Wilkins at letters@memphisflyer.com.

Fourteen Tennessee state parks were closed, the remaining 40 cut operations to five days a week, and 108 park employees were fired in late August by Governor Don Sundquist, who blamed the moves on budget cuts made by the state legislature. A spokesperson for the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) says the closings are temporary and experiments with entrance fees are under way at several state parks.

Writer and park advocate Ron Castle says the real reasons Tennessee parks are not financially viable are unnecessarily lavish building projects and mismanagement. The problems with Tennessee’s state parks run deeper than a lack of funding, Castle wrote in an article in the Tennes-Sierran, a monthly newspaper of the state chapter of the Sierra Club.

“In fact,” Castle wrote, “too much money is part of the problem, money spent on the wrong things at the wrong times in the wrong places.” Castle has a decade’s experience with state parks and has conducted numerous interviews with park employees. “As a whole,” the article continued, “the problems are the result of the long-term absence of professional leadership and the loss of the original vision of what our park system is supposed to be. To understand where we are today, we need to examine where we’ve been.”

Castle contends that major funding has been wasted on resort parks — hotels, golf courses, and convention centers that never pay for themselves. He says 1,600 buildings have been constructed on lands originally intended to be natural areas and that since 1990 the state has spent $131 million for resort improvements.

TDEC spokesperson Kim Olsen counters by saying state parks should be a destination for everyone, not just campers and hikers. Resort parks allow city folk to enjoy nature without having to give up the comforts of civilization, she says.

Castle believes the original resort parks were built as personal perks for the governor. In the early 1950s, he notes, Paris Landing State Park — with a hotel and restaurant — was built in the governor’s home region. The next two governors also built resort parks near their homes, and soon state-funded hotels and golf courses were springing up all over Tennessee.

Castle questions the wisdom of the state’s decision to compete with the private sector for tourism dollars and to take on debt for questionable business ventures.

“Repayment of bonds is not the responsibility of the politician who votes to put his or her name on a brass plaque at the new resort park in his or her district,” Castle wrote. “Repayment is the responsibility of the taxpayers and that responsibility lasts long after the politician has retired from public office.”

Castle also raises concerns about a lack of professional leadership for the state parks. In 60 years since the state first named a director of parks, none of the directors has had a formal education in natural-resource management or experience as a park manager.

Castle says leaving the management of the park system to political patronage comes at the expense of the parks themselves. He also criticizes the state’s accounting procedures, claiming it is impossible to tell whether the resort parks are making money.

Olsen says they are looking at ways to employ a more accurate accounting method for resort parks. But Castle writes that state park employees have told him their suggestions for saving the parks money have been ignored.

“There are all kinds of ideas for saving money, but the problem is the state park system is managed in a command and control structure where all decisions come out of Nashville and are made for political reasons,” Castle adds.

(Even in the face of park closings, new building projects are being completed. Several new cabins have been opened at Nathan Bedford Forrest State Park and a new $14 million hotel has been opened at Pickwick Landing State Park.)

Memphian Charles Rond often hikes in Millington’s Meeman-Shelby State Park. He says entrance fees would not be his first choice as a method to re-open the parks. He has suggested at park meetings that groups like the Boy Scouts or hiking clubs could volunteer to save the state money on labor.

“My contention is that individual citizens could offer to continue the work of trail maintenance and take the responsibility off park personnel,” Rond says. “They could coordinate efforts and send them to places that needed work and we could provide the manpower.”

If the parks remain closed, however, the state of Tennessee could lose millions in funding from the National Park Service, says assistant park service director Tom Ross. The state took money from the federal government under the condition the parks would be open to the public, he says, and the closings violate that agreement.

Ross is concerned over the closings, and though he has no timetable for acting against the state, he says his agency is meeting with state officials. Options such as assistance from “friends of the parks” groups, leasing arrangements, and entrance fees are being discussed as ways to get the parks open again.

Olsen says employees terminated were given 90 days notice and will be dismissed November 30th. Though many doubt sufficient security could be maintained at the closed parks, Olsen says money has been set aside for that purpose. Golf courses and resort parks will remain open because they make a profit.

“We have been working with Tom [Ross] to establish some kind of time line to get [the parks] back open,” Olsen says. “We intend this to be temporary.”

(Locally, T.O. Fuller and Meeman-Shelby State Parks are closed Monday and Tuesday, but open the remainder of the week.)You can e-mail Andrew Wilkins at letters@memphisflyer.com.

The Shelby County Commission continues to sacrifice rural areas to urban
sprawl, in the process destroying natural resources and quality of life and
leaving locals to pick up the tab for increased infrastructure costs.

Set among the fields and forests of the Brunswick area, a 16-acre, high-
density housing tract, ironically named the Village, was approved by the
county commission against the wishes of local residents and the city of
Bartlett, the municipality designated to annex the area.

Built on a two-lane country road unserved by public transportation, the
development has increased traffic and accidents in the area, caused the
depredation of neighboring Oliver Creek, and will force Bartlett to spend more
than it planned on school, road, and sewer services, says Rudolph Jones, whose
farm borders the Village.

“Bartlett sat down with its residents and the county and laid out a
plan for fiscally responsible growth,” Jones says. “Then the county
commission comes around and stabs us in the back. The development wasn’t done
to our standards and now we [Bartlett] will have to pay for it out of our own
pocket.”

The county commission’s decision to overrule the plans of municipalities
is testimony to the power of developers in county politics. It’s a trend
that’s draining the coffers of the county government. This in the face of
recent studies by the Shelby County office of planning and development and the
University of Memphis indicating that increased tax revenue brought by
development doesn’t cover the new schools, roads, and sewers needed to service
such developments.

“The study shows residential development in the county costs four
times the revenue it brings in. Industrial development breaks even, and
commercial development provides a positive revenue stream,” says county
commissioner Buck Wellford. Wellford is sponsoring a bill to recover some of
the county’s infrastructure expenditures through development-impact fees.

Wellford doesn’t expect development in the county to totally pay for
itself, but he wants to make revitalization of the city, where infrastructure
already exists, more attractive.

Bartlett already has “smart growth” plans in place, though the
city is hindered by a lack of control of its annexation reserve area. Jones
blames a group of inner-city commissioners who vote for sprawl/development in
exchange for political favors from developers.

“The county will eventually have to raise taxes to pay for the
schools and bridges required by development,” Jones says. “They
don’t think it affects them in the city, but every single citizen has to pay
for the increase. It doesn’t matter if you are black, white, green, or
yellow.”

County commissioner Tom Moss, who represents Brunswick and several other
rural areas of the county, says he has seen many developments in annexation
reserve areas passed against the wishes of area residents and local
municipalities. Moss says he votes according to the wishes of his constituents
but says the rural areas of the county only have three of 13 votes on the
commission.

Another high-density development proposed for the Brunswick area was
voted down by the commission due to strong opposition from neighbors, but the
developer refuses to compromise and continues to fight for the project, Moss
says.

There are no simple answers to the development issue, Moss adds. He fears
impact fees could chase development out of the county. He says most growth
studies don’t consider the full impact of new construction.

“In a fiscal impact study comparing taxes to services, growth
doesn’t pay for itself,” Moss adds. “But we have to consider the
businesses that follow, like service stations and Walgreen’s and the financial
impact of that.”

Lakeland resident Judy Bennett says she has seen developers almost always
get what they want. She’s running for a seat as a commissioner and sprawl is a
major issue for her — as it will be for the other candidates, she says.

Residents of Lakeland are tired of losing the forests and open fields
that brought them there in the first place, Bennett says. She opposes
“cookie-cutter” neighborhoods and alleges that “bad
growth” is what is bankrupting the county, and forcing school children to
sell candy to pay for school supplies.

“You look in Cordova where they’re packed side to side with no
sidewalks and no open space,” Bennett says. “These neighborhoods are
less expensive but the families are paying the price in quality of life. And
the county is paying for it too.”

While he says it’s difficult to find solid numbers on the cost of sprawl,
University of Memphis economics professor David Ciscel has published a report
on the financial effects of urban sprawl in Memphis and Shelby County. The key
financial problem with sprawl, he says, is that the benefits go to the private
sector, but the infrastructure costs have to be carried by local
governments.

And while governments are trying to build infrastructure in the suburbs,
the city’s roads and schools continue to need maintenance, Ciscel says.

Ciscel points out that the average income in the city is $25,050, while
in the county it’s $52,263. The study revealed that Memphis is different from
most cities in that higher-income jobs are in the city while the lower-wage
service and warehouse jobs are in the suburbs.

“So every day,” Ciscel says, “we have a transfer of
suburbans to the city and city-dwellers to the suburbs. Without good public
transportation, all [that travel] is based on the car, which wastes time in
traffic and pollutes the environment.”

Ciscel offers no easy answers for curbing county sprawl, but his study
suggests it’s much cheaper — for all of us — to invest in the inner-city
infrastructure rather than starting from nothing in the outlying areas.

You can e-mail Andrew Wilkins at letters@memphisflyer.com.

The international reliance on large-scale factory farms has resulted in the loss of thousands of varieties of fruits, vegetables, and grains. Cary Fowler, who works for the United Nations brokering international agricultural genetic exchanges, was in Memphis earlier this month visiting family. We sat down to discuss the problem and what is being done about it.

Flyer: Explain the importance of genetic diversity.

Fowler: When most people think about biological diversity they think pandas and whales and things like that, but of course what keeps most species alive is the diversity within the species. People think species extinction is some event — when the last individual dies. But in agricultural crops, and in everything else, we ought to think about extinction as a process rather than as an event. It’s a process where a species loses the ability to evolve. And it loses the ability to evolve when there’s not enough genetic diversity to facilitate that evolution. To some degree, you can say something is functionally extinct even if there are quite a few of them around. If all the dogs in the world were Pekinese, how reassuring would that be?

Because one disease can come along and wipe them all out?

Right. Many people find it hard to get emotional about carrots or tomatoes or wheat in the same sense they would about seals and sea turtles and things like that, but we ought to be thinking about the genetic diversity within our major agricultural crops if we want them to be around very long.

Are many varieties being lost?

Yes, there has been a tremendous decrease in species. I wrote a book called Shattering on this same issue. Frankly, there is very little good data on this. We never had a good head count in the first place, so we don’t know what existed. We don’t know how much was lost in terms of numbers of varieties.

Probably the best data is from the United States. Around the turn of the century the department of agriculture was surveying varieties of apple trees, pear trees, cherries, broccoli, cauliflower, wheat — everything. If you check back now, about 85 percent of the apple trees that existed around the turn of the century are gone. Extinct. Never to be seen again. And, of course, the diversity, characteristic diseases, pest resistance, nutritional quality — in a sense the history of that apple going back thousands of years — is also gone. That’s part of what I’m involved in doing: working to conserve that genetic diversity for the future.

There are now very large collections of seeds being kept in freezers. They’re called gene banks, and the institutions I work with hold probably the widest selections of this genetic diversity in the world. We are actively breeding 24 crops, most of the major food crops in the world, and we have large collections of these materials — 80,000, 90,000, 100,000 varieties. We have over 100,000 varieties of rice. Breeders use these varieties in breeding programs.

There has been a lot of effort in the last 25 years to conserve this material. This is the raw material of the future of agriculture; without this we would have mass starvation on a scale you couldn’t imagine because we wouldn’t be able to keep up with the environmental changes that agriculture has to adapt to. And funding is more or less year by year for something we have to have for the future.

When I first started working on this about 25 years ago, people’s eyes would glaze over when you talked about genetic diversity. They didn’t know what it meant. But if you asked them if tomatoes taste as good as they did when you were growing up, people would say no. Then one begins to understand there are different varieties.

Go to the Andes, the home of the potato, and cut open a potato. Some will be white like the ones we have here; some will be red, purple, black, yellow, a whole range of colors. You look at tomatoes, eggplants — they come in a gigantic variety of colors and shapes.

And these varieties have different qualities for different climates?

Yes. It’s easy to see the visual differences in beans or apples. What you don’t see is that over the 10,000- to 15,000-year history of agriculture, they became adapted to different environments. So we have apples that are appropriate in warm climates or in the winters of Norway. That might not be something you can see when you look at a fruit, but they all have different adaptations to pests, climates, and diseases. There are apples that have eight times the vitamin C of the average orange. So when they say an apple a day keeps the doctor away, it really depends on what variety you choose.

So when I go to the store and pick up an apple, what is that variety bred for?

In a normal store at this time of year, you are eating last year’s apple. So that apple is bred for cold storage, among other things. Some really nice apples won’t take that — delicious apples — but not commercially viable on a large scale.

What’s your take on the controversy concerning genetically modified crops?

We are working on drought-tolerant maize that’s getting out in farmers’ fields. This is going to save hundreds of thousands of lives and save a significant amount of environment in southern Africa because they won’t be tearing up land to plant larger fields of corn. The corn doesn’t use any alien gene — it’s found in another variety of corn — but we use modern biotechnology techniques to get the proper trait for the poor southern African farmer. I don’t have too many problems with that. But the risks go up when you start transferring genes from, say, fish to plants.

You can e-mail Andrew Wilkins at letters@memphisflyer.com.

The international reliance on large-scale factory farms has resulted in the loss of thousands of varieties of fruits, vegetables, and grains. Cary Fowler, who works for the United Nations brokering international agricultural genetic exchanges, was in Memphis earlier this month visiting family. We sat down to discuss the problem and what is being done about it.

Flyer: Explain the importance of genetic diversity.

Fowler: When most people think about biological diversity they think pandas and whales and things like that, but of course what keeps most species alive is the diversity within the species. People think species extinction is some event — when the last individual dies. But in agricultural crops, and in everything else, we ought to think about extinction as a process rather than as an event. It’s a process where a species loses the ability to evolve. And it loses the ability to evolve when there’s not enough genetic diversity to facilitate that evolution. To some degree, you can say something is functionally extinct even if there are quite a few of them around. If all the dogs in the world were Pekinese, how reassuring would that be?

Because one disease can come along and wipe them all out?

Right. Many people find it hard to get emotional about carrots or tomatoes or wheat in the same sense they would about seals and sea turtles and things like that, but we ought to be thinking about the genetic diversity within our major agricultural crops if we want them to be around very long.

Are many varieties being lost?

Yes, there has been a tremendous decrease in species. I wrote a book called Shattering on this same issue. Frankly, there is very little good data on this. We never had a good head count in the first place, so we don’t know what existed. We don’t know how much was lost in terms of numbers of varieties.

Probably the best data is from the United States. Around the turn of the century the department of agriculture was surveying varieties of apple trees, pear trees, cherries, broccoli, cauliflower, wheat — everything. If you check back now, about 85 percent of the apple trees that existed around the turn of the century are gone. Extinct. Never to be seen again. And, of course, the diversity, characteristic diseases, pest resistance, nutritional quality — in a sense the history of that apple going back thousands of years — is also gone. That’s part of what I’m involved in doing: working to conserve that genetic diversity for the future.

There are now very large collections of seeds being kept in freezers. They’re called gene banks, and the institutions I work with hold probably the widest selections of this genetic diversity in the world. We are actively breeding 24 crops, most of the major food crops in the world, and we have large collections of these materials — 80,000, 90,000, 100,000 varieties. We have over 100,000 varieties of rice. Breeders use these varieties in breeding programs.

There has been a lot of effort in the last 25 years to conserve this material. This is the raw material of the future of agriculture; without this we would have mass starvation on a scale you couldn’t imagine because we wouldn’t be able to keep up with the environmental changes that agriculture has to adapt to. And funding is more or less year by year for something we have to have for the future.

When I first started working on this about 25 years ago, people’s eyes would glaze over when you talked about genetic diversity. They didn’t know what it meant. But if you asked them if tomatoes taste as good as they did when you were growing up, people would say no. Then one begins to understand there are different varieties.

Go to the Andes, the home of the potato, and cut open a potato. Some will be white like the ones we have here; some will be red, purple, black, yellow, a whole range of colors. You look at tomatoes, eggplants — they come in a gigantic variety of colors and shapes.

And these varieties have different qualities for different climates?

Yes. It’s easy to see the visual differences in beans or apples. What you don’t see is that over the 10,000- to 15,000-year history of agriculture, they became adapted to different environments. So we have apples that are appropriate in warm climates or in the winters of Norway. That might not be something you can see when you look at a fruit, but they all have different adaptations to pests, climates, and diseases. There are apples that have eight times the vitamin C of the average orange. So when they say an apple a day keeps the doctor away, it really depends on what variety you choose.

So when I go to the store and pick up an apple, what is that variety bred for?

In a normal store at this time of year, you are eating last year’s apple. So that apple is bred for cold storage, among other things. Some really nice apples won’t take that — delicious apples — but not commercially viable on a large scale.

What’s your take on the controversy concerning genetically modified crops?

We are working on drought-tolerant maize that’s getting out in farmers’ fields. This is going to save hundreds of thousands of lives and save a significant amount of environment in southern Africa because they won’t be tearing up land to plant larger fields of corn. The corn doesn’t use any alien gene — it’s found in another variety of corn — but we use modern biotechnology techniques to get the proper trait for the poor southern African farmer. I don’t have too many problems with that. But the risks go up when you start transferring genes from, say, fish to plants.

You can e-mail Andrew Wilkins at letters@memphisflyer.com.

Deep in the forest on the Cumberland Ridge in eastern Tennessee, solar panels rise from an organic garden.

This is the Sequatchie Valley Institute (SVI), a 30-year-old family homestead committed to living and teaching a sustainable, nature-based lifestyle on a planet they consider addicted to overconsumption and the abuse of natural resources. Students from Memphis — and all over the world — come here to study energy-efficient housing, subsistence farming, environmentalism, and nutrition.

“We want to offer an example of a lifestyle where we choose to live in harmony with nature,” says Ashley Ironwood, one of SVI’s seven residents. “We don’t want to preach it, but if you come up here and experience it, that’s good.”

On our visit to SVI last week, Ironwood led us down a wooded trail off the main house to the hand-built domicile where she and her husband plan to raise their first child, due in March. Affectionately called the “Mud Dauber,” it was built during a workshop on cob housing, a construction method using clay, straw, sand, and water on a foundation of native stone.

It’s the hottest part of the afternoon yet it’s cool inside the house. Ironwood says the house is built into a hillside to utilize lower subterranean temperatures. In the winter, large southern-facing windows, now shaded by trees, allow the native-stone floor to absorb solar warmth, she says. The house has a central fireplace that also serves as a staircase to the loft, but Ironwood says they only needed a fire six times last winter.

Ironwood and her husband Patrick are the second generation to live in Moonshadow, the main house that’s the nerve center of SVI. Patrick’s parents are science teachers who moved here in 1977 as part of the back-to-the-land movement. Eight years later, in 1985, they completed their house. Since then, their original 200-acre homestead has grown another 137 acres and become the teaching center it is today.

Rough-hewn wood and a native-stone floor and fireplace give Moonshadow the look of a 19th-century cabin. But it’s balanced with modern technology — a stereo and fluorescent lighting — and artistic touches such as stained-glass windows and a cold-water tub lined with plants.

Three-year resident John Johnson says the house is solar-powered except for the propane stove, refrigerator, and water heater. During some parts of the year water and energy use have to be monitored by watching the solar-power reserve readout, he says. But Johnson thinks America would be better off if more people were conscious of their energy consumption.

“Out here we have to be aware of what we consume,” he says. “People in the city are not thinking about the coal burned or the nuclear waste that lasts 250,000 years. They just pay the bill every month and everything just happens.”

Moonshadow strives to use manmade resources efficiently as well. In many instances “dumpster dived” materials were used. Johnson says the new greenhouse will be built with discarded industrial glass and insulated with thousands of defective tennis balls.

Memphian Denny Henke says Moonshadow is a perfect example of how man and nature can live together. He says his visit inspired him to bring sustainable living back to the city.

“Their way of living is more respectful, rational, and balanced. There’s an artistic quality to the way they live,” Henke says. “Mainstream America buys their lives at Target and at the mall. Moonshadow works with the natural environment to create what they consume. It’s a lesson in self-reliance.”

One of the most important features of SVI is the garden, which was designed using a concept called “permaculture,” or permanent agriculture. Gone are traditional rows, the use of pesticides, and large monocultures, says resident Leigh Scherberger. Plants are weeded less often, mulched more, and allowed to migrate to a place in the garden that suits them best. The garden looks wild and chaotic, a lesson in nature’s way of growing.

“We live in the forest and we want to keep as much of it alive as possible, so we try to fit many plants in a small space,” Scherberger says.

SVI teaches what it has learned by hosting field trips from local schools and offering internships and weekend workshops. This past week, classes natural medicine, beer-making, and gardening, were taught, Scherberger says.

In describing how logs are prepared to produce mushrooms, she begins to speak passionately about how Southern forests are being destroyed and replaced with pine farms to make paper. She expresses frustration and anger at a system that wastes natural resources.

Several residents of SVI work in the environmental movement teaching film-making, to document environmental problems, and participate in “direct action” — such as chaining themselves to logging trucks or denying entry to questionable meetings, as was done in Washington, D.C., for the World Trade Organization summit.

Jim Brentley came to Moonshadow with his girlfriend and her child after graduating from the University of the South with a degree in environmental policy. He wanted to learn survival skills, because he believes the traditional American way of life cannot last much longer.

By the time we finished our tour of SVI the sun had set and we decided to stay the night. My sleeping bag was in the car and I asked to borrow a flashlight to guide my path.

Brentley said I had options and pulled out two flashlights. “There’s the capitalist flashlight that needs batteries or the communist one that you power yourself,” he said, demonstrating a flashlight powered by pumping a lever.

I chose the hand-powered light and stumbled out into the thick Appalachian night, blissfully self-sufficient with a cramping hand. n

You can e-mail Andrew Wilkins at letters@memphisflyer.com.