May 24, 2023

You say you want a revolution? Jean-Paul Marat was born 280 years ago today.

In today's report: The Knoxville-Knox County Sports Authority could go to market as soon as today with a $65 million bond issue to fund the stadium under construction east of the Old City — just in time for a possible federal government default that could throw the economy into turmoil. Mark Mamantov, the Sports Authority’s bond counsel, said at Tuesday’s meeting of the board that a default — which has never happened in the nation’s history — could disrupt the deal’s closing, but shouldn’t be a cause for panic. Meanwhile, the board received an update on the participation of disadvantaged business enterprises (DBEs) in the stadium’s construction. DBE contracts total nearly $9.951 million, which is about 12.5 percent of the $80.69 million awarded to date and doesn’t include money designated for a Black-owned firm that’s part of the management team. We sat in on the Sports Authority meeting to catch up with the latest developments.

Jacobs Engineering has reached a settlement agreement in a federal lawsuit filed by more than 200 workers who labored without personal protection at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s cleanup of the 2008 Kingston Fossil Plant coal ash spill, Jamie Satterfield reports in the Tennessee Lookout.

In a court battle that has waged for a decade, Jacobs Engineering announced it had agreed to a monetary settlement in a statement on its website, according to the report, though details weren’t released. The plaintiffs rejected at least three previous offers, including one of $35 million in 2021.

More than 50 former cleanup workers have died and more than 150 are ill. In 2018, a federal jury found Jacobs Engineering violated its contract with TVA by not protecting its workers. The coal ash sludge at the Kingston plant contained arsenic, lead, selenium, radium, uranium and other toxic substances. The company lost all appeals except one that was still pending at the time of the settlement. 

Satterfield, a former News Sentinel reporter, won “Best of Show” at the East Tennessee Society of Professional Journalists 2022 Golden Press Card Awards last week for previous reporting at the Tennessee Lookout on the legal battle.

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Knox County has something new: a public safety director. At Monday's County Commission meeting, commissioners were introduced to Brent Seymour, a former assistant chief of the Knoxville Fire Department who served with KFD for 27 years.

In the newly created position under the county's Community Development department, he will help coordinate with and be a liaison for the private and volunteer fire and rescue departments that serve the county outside Knoxville city limits. Those include Rural Metro, the Karns and Seymour fire departments, and Knox County Rescue.

"The biggest thing is making sure our fire and rescue services are sustainable, long after our careers are over," Seymour told commissioners. "Small incremental changes now can mean 20 years from now, our agencies are still able to provide the high levels of service they do now."

Four years ago, a consultant hired by the county recommended that it form a public fire department to serve areas outside the city, and pay for it with a special fire tax district. But County Mayor Glenn Jacobs has chosen instead to continue to rely on the existing patchwork of subscription and volunteer services.

Speaking of Jacobs, his office reported yesterday that a recent compliance effort at all seven county convenience centers had flagged 51 people for dumping commercial waste, and 132 out-of-county residents. The centers' waste collection and recycling services are free to Knox County residents, but are not open to commercial or out-of-county patrons.

The violators were issued warnings. During the compliance checks, county staff also distributed 560 pairs of tarps and bungee cords to vehicles that needed them to cover their cargo.

"We are thrilled with the results of the compliance checks," said Tom Walker, the county's environmental crimes investigator, in a news release. "The goal of the checks is to prevent abuse of the free waste disposal service and educate people about the importance of properly securing their loads."

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Backlash over the state's third-grade retention law continued to spread across social media yesterday, with thousands of families left uncertain about their children's immediate future. Some students are still retaking the English language arts TCAP test they scored below "proficient" on the first time around.

And all are still waiting to find out on Thursday whether they have to attend a monthlong summer camp — which will take up nearly half their summer break — or see a regular tutor next year, or both.

State Rep. Jason Zachary, R-Farragut, posted a video to both defend and explain the law. He said scoring below "proficient" on the test — as 60 percent of third-graders statewide did this year — is a sign that a student needs focused intervention.

"In order for them to reach their full potential, we need to provide additional steps for that student to get them reading close to grade level," said Zachary, who said he had received a dozen emails from upset parents.

He emphasized that only students who score in the "below proficient" category will have to take both the summer camp and 4th grade tutoring. Students in the "approaching proficient" category will have the choice of one or the other. (Early data showed that 25 percent of students statewide were "below" and 35 percent were "approaching.")

Also, Zachary said, students in the "approaching" category who have separate ELA benchmark test scores showing them performing adequately will be able to file appeals with the state beginning next week. He said appeals would be granted quickly.

Still, the confusion and anger over the law had several Democratic members of the state Legislature taking a told-you-so tack. State Rep. Gloria Johnson, D-Knoxville, who accused the state's Republican supermajority of intentionally creating chaos in public schools.

"We told them this would happen, they ignored it," Johnson tweeted. "These tests are not intended to be used for high stakes placement decisions — but when your goal is privatizing public ed for your hedge fund friends and for controlling the masses, you use children as pawns for your politics."

State Sen. Heidi Campbell, D-Nashville, wrote, "I am receiving emails and letters from so many parents whose children are crushed bc they did not pass the TCAP test- crying themselves to sleep- feeling like they are inferior. This is the exact disaster we said it would be."

And state Sen. Charlane Oliver, D-Nashville, posted a video from debate about the law last month in which she made a plea on behalf of parents and students facing uncertainty as summer approached.

"What this bill does is add another added layer of bureaucracy for parents who already have a limited summer schedule to work with," Oliver said during the debate.

Her video clip included a response from state Sen. Todd Gardenhire, R-Chattanooga, who wiped fake tears from his eyes with a napkin. "I've heard a lot of discussion about missing a family vacation and stuff ," he said, adding, "Just a minute, Mr. Speaker, I need to shed a tear for those parents."

He then berated parents of low-scoring students for what he suggested were their failures: "Maybe you ought to spend time with that child teaching them to read."

Critics of the law say it's a misinterpretation of the test to suggest that students who score below "proficient" can't read. The test measures complex comprehension, processing and reasoning skills. The Tennessee Holler

One of the aggrieved parents is Knox County school board member Katherine Bike, who has strongly opposed the law and posted on social media yesterday that, "Tonight I had to tell my brilliant child that he did not pass the retest." In case her feelings about the law weren't entirely clear, she added a middle-finger emoji.

The South Knoxville Neighborhood & Business Coalition is sponsoring a community event on Thursday about a proposed change to commercial zoning specifications that could affect Chapman Highway south of Young High Pike.

City Council held a workshop last month on possible changes to C-G-2 and C-G-3 commercial zones. The zones are designed to promote pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use development. Standards include build-to percentages and build-to zones that result in buildings closer to the road. 

The Knoxville-Knox County Planning staff has identified the southern section of Chapman Highway in the city as a more auto-oriented area that might not be suited for an emphasis on pedestrians. Planning staff identified other corridors with similar conditions at a distance from the downtown core, including Kingston Pike, Asheville Highway, North Broadway in Fountain City and South Northshore Drive.

The community meeting, which will include opportunities to give feedback, will be held 5-6:30 p.m. Thursday at 71 South in Baker Creek Bottoms.

Frontier, the world’s first exoscale computer, has increased its speed since its May 2022 launch to 1.194 exaflops, or 1.194 quintillion calculations per second, according to Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It remains the world’s fastest computer.

“Frontier represents the culmination of more than a decade of hard work by dedicated professionals from across academia, private business and the national laboratory complex through the Exascale Computing Project to realize a goal that once seemed barely possible,” Doug Kothe, ORNL’s associate laboratory director for computing and computational sciences, said in a statement. “This machine will shrink the timeline for discoveries that will change the world for the better and touch everyone on Earth.”

ORNL also listed several studies underway that use Frontier’s computing power to make advances in multiple fields. A selection of the studies include:

• ExaSMR: Led by ORNL’s Steven Hamilton, this study seeks to cut out the long timelines and high front-end costs of advanced nuclear reactor design and use exascale computing power to simulate modular reactors that would not only be smaller but also safer, more versatile and customizable to sizes beyond the traditional huge reactors that power cities.
• Combustion PELE: This study, named for the Hawaiian goddess of fire and led by Jacqueline Chen of Sandia National Laboratories, is designed to simulate the physics inside an internal combustion engine in pursuit of developing cleaner, more efficient engines that would reduce carbon emissions and conserve fossil fuels.
• ExaSky: This study, led by Salman Habib of Argonne National Laboratory, seeks to expand the size, scope and accuracy of simulations for complex cosmological phenomena, such as dark energy and dark matter, to uncover new insights into the dynamics of the universe.
• Cancer Distributed Learning Environment (CANDLE): Led by Argonne’s Rick Stevens, this study seeks to develop predictive simulations that could help identify and streamline trials for promising cancer treatments, reducing years of lengthy, expensive clinical studies.

More information about these and other studies using Frontier’s capabilities can be found here.

“We’ve been carefully fine-tuning Frontier for the past year, and these teams have been our test pilots, helping us see what heights we can reach,” said Bronson Messer, Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility director of science at ORNL. “We’ve just begun to discover where exascale can take us.”

Out of county Trash Panda.