One of the best places in Knoxville to walk, bike or run is the spectacular new greenway that runs from Ijams Nature Center in South Knoxville east through the Forks of the River Wildlife Management Area.  —Or, rather, it would be one of the best places, were it not for the fact that the air there is often saturated with a nauseating chemical perfume.  I went running on the greenway recently, on a calm, drizzly morning.  The scenery was grand — patches of shady forest and glimpses of the Tennessee and French Broad Rivers, alternating with open fields abloom with sunflowers, black-eyed Susans, red clover, chickory, Queen Anne's lace and choreopsis.
     But the air … there was something wrong with the air.  The smell was penetrating, like the odor of new polystyrene or of melting styrofoam — and no wonder, for lingering in the still air all around the greenway was the vapor of styrene, one of the chief ingredients of many plastics.  Styrene is listed by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as a possible human carcinogen.  Several studies have linked breathing of styrene vapors to increased incidence of leukemia in human beings.  Concentrated styrene vapor can also irritate the eyes, nose and throat and adversely affect the human nervous system.  But, says the EPA, "Other human health effects associated with exposure to small amounts of styrene over long periods of time are not known."   Likewise, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, "There is no information as to whether breathing … styrene affects fetal development or human reproduction. In animal studies, short-term exposure to very high levels resulted in some reproductive and developmental effects."
     The source of the styrene is not far to be found.  Directly across the river from Eastern State lies the Forks of the River Industrial Park, the entire southern end of which is taken up by the facilities of a single manufacturer.  It is these facilities which are the source of the styrene.  The offender, Knoxville's worst air polluter, is Sea Ray Boats.
     Sea Ray has for years been releasing far greater quantities of toxic chemicals into the air than all other industries in Knox County combined.  According to the EPA's 1998 Toxic Release Inventory, the most recent and complete data available, Sea Ray's annual emission of styrene alone totals 460,000 pounds.  This is more than half of the toxic air emissions for all of Knox county, which amount to about 813,000 pounds.   Besides the styrene, Sea Ray also released in 1998 over 23,000 pounds of toxic methyl methacrylate.  On the whole, Sea Ray's air emissions account for about 59 percent by weight of Knox County's total toxic industrial air pollution.
     Sea Ray is therefore disproportionately threatening public health and degrading one the finest public park facilities in the area.  Why?  Other local industries, such as the Rohm and Haas chemical facilities just north of the UT campus have made impressive progress in reducing their toxic emissions.  Sea Ray's management seems, however, intent on solving their pollution problem not, as Rohm and Haas did,  by intelligent engineering, but by slick image-polishing.  Sea Ray is the proud sponsor of many local charities, including the annual River Rescue, whose aim is to improve the quality of the very river whose air Sea Ray is degrading.  Charity in this case might best begin at home.
     These thoughts angered me as I ran in the polluted air, breathing Sea Ray's toxic waste.  I tried to console myself with the thought that the air around the greenway is cleaner when the west wind blows, sweeping the pollution away upriver.  But better is still not good enough.  There are too few places to run or walk or bike by water and trees and fields and away from the noise and pollution of traffic.  When the air of one of these few places is ruined by a negligent industry, it is time to act.