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NC State University News Clips for November 15-17, 2003

Compiled by North Carolina State University’s News Services, a part of the Public Affairs Office. Listed below are the current news clips. Click on the headline of interest to be taken to the full text. Click on “Return to Headline List” at the bottom of each clip or use the scrollbar to be taken back to this location.

CURRENT PRESS RELEASES

IN-STATE CLIPS

Flooding clues sought in storms
Isabel, Floyd data might aid forecasters

Renewable energy effort faces hurdles
'Green' programs seek support of legislators, utilities, customers

North Carolina's universities for N.C. residents
North Carolina's in-state argument about out-of-state students has ended for now, which is just as well.

NATIONAL & REGIONAL CLIPS

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Flooding clues sought in storms

Nov. 17, 2003
News & Observer
By Barbara Barrett, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 News & Observer

When Hurricane Floyd hit four years ago, torrents of rain inundated Eastern North Carolina, flooding homes and turning roads into rivers. Some people died trying to escape.

This fall, barreled through the mid-Atlantic, bringing winds and storm surge but far less rain.

Forecasters don't fully understand the differences between the two storms when it comes to inland flooding. But come January, a group of researchers at N.C. State University and forecasters at the National Weather Service hope to change that.

They will begin a yearlong project that could be the first step in understanding more about tropical cyclones and inland, freshwater flooding. The group will work with a $41,000 federal grant and the donated time and energy of nearly half a dozen researchers.

"This whole thing started with Floyd flooding, which surprised everyone," said Lian Xie, an associate professor at NCSU and the lead investigator on the project. "Both researchers and forecasters realized there's a lot we don't know about inland flooding."

The project is part of a national plan to overhaul the way weather officials forecast flooding. Some results could be seen as soon as next hurricane season.

There's a lot at stake. Of 56 deaths attributed to Floyd in the United States, 48 of them were drownings in inland, freshwater flooding. During the past three decades, 59 percent of tropical cyclone deaths have come from freshwater floods.

"It happens so quickly that, unless there is a good forecast, you can't get away from it," said Sethu Raman, the state climatologist and a professor of atmospheric science at NCSU.

The research has several parts. Scientists are pulling together historical rainfall amounts and topographical information to identify flooding "hot spots" across the state. They're collecting details on soil saturation and evaporation statewide to see how water runs off into rivers. They also want to know for certain whether flooding is getting worse in North Carolina.

Then, they want to tell weather forecasters how to use all this information.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the project is a comparison between hurricanes Floyd and Isabel. Both were large, Category 2 storms that made landfall in mid-September on the coast of North Carolina.

Floyd dumped nearly 20 inches of rain in 1999, while this year's Isabel dropped less than 6 inches in most parts of the state.

Isabel vs. Floyd

There are a few things forecasters know about the storms, said Kermit Keeter, a meteorologist and science operations officer for the National Weather Service in Raleigh.

For example, Floyd hit land and ran into a stationary front, a vertical wall that forced the hurricane's winds upward, cooling the air and squeezing more rain out of the storm. Floyd also followed Hurricane Dennis, which had saturated the ground and filled rivers with rainfall.

Isabel, on the other hand, came along when the air over North Carolina was mostly dry, so far less rain fell.

But, Keeter said, scientists want to know other atmospheric influences on the storms, too. How were the winds in the upper part of the atmosphere behaving? What weather came just before the storms? What were the earth's conditions?

A lot of the data will be plugged into computer models and run repeatedly, letting scientists figure out how different weather patterns affect rainfall and flooding.

"You do it until you get the events right," said Leonard "Len" Pietrafesa, an NCSU professor who specializes in computer weather modeling.

Forecasting goals

The project in Raleigh is just one element of a massive, multi-year program called for last year in legislation sponsored by U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge, a Democrat from Lillington. Called the Tropical Cyclone Inland Forecasting Improvement and Warning System Development Act, the program offers $5.75 million over five years to study inland flooding.

The $41,000 grant will pay for one graduate student's salary and associated costs. Xie figures that next year's work could easily bring in a million-dollar grant.

For now, though, Xie and the other researchers, along with the university and weather service, are donating time and equipment.

"The flooding issue is such a major issue for North Carolina, some of us felt it would be our responsibility," Xie said.

By next hurricane season, Xie said, the group hopes to have a survey of flood-prone areas complete, which will help forecasters figure out where flooding is likely to occur, how intense and for how long. The group also hopes to have some greater understanding of the science that leads to heavy rainfall in hurricanes.

Eventually, scientists hope to develop a flood-rating scale, similar to the Saffir-Simpson scale used to rate hurricanes. That means local residents would know what to expect if they heard a forecaster call for, say, a category 3 flood prediction.

There's a long way yet to go. Next year's project won't solve the forecasting problem, but the research should help scientists focus on the problem of freshwater flooding, Keeter said.

"It is a big threat, and it kills people," he said.a tale of two storms

One of the goals of a research project by N.C. State University and the National Weather Service is to compare the climatology of hurricanes Floyd and Isabel. Scientists want to understand more about why some hurricanes cause more flooding than others. Here's what they know so far:

Hurricane Floyd

DEVELOPED AS TROPICAL DEPRESSION: Sept. 2, 1999, off western coast of Africa

LANDFALL: About 2:30 a.m. Sept. 16, 1999, near Cape Fear

RAINFALL IN NORTH CAROLINA: 19.06 inches in Wilmington

HEAVIEST RAINFALL: Along and west of Floyd's track

OTHER WEATHER CONDITIONS: Floyd hit a pre-existing frontal zone that contributed to heavy rain.

DEATHS: 56 nationally, including 48 because of drowning from inland, freshwater flooding

SAFFIR-SIMPSON SCALE AT LANDFALL: Category 2

Hurricane Isabel

DEVELOPED AS TROPICAL STORM: Sept. 6, 2003, off western coast of Africa

LANDFALL: About 1 p.m. Sept. 18, 2003, near Cape Lookout

RAINFALL IN NORTH CAROLINA: 7.83 inches in northeastern North Carolina

HEAVIEST RAINFALL: Along and east of Isabel's track

OTHER WEATHER CONDITIONS: Wind shear at upper levels of storm and dry air behind it

DEATHS: 41 nationally, including at least seven from drowning

SAFFIR-SIMPSON SCALE AT LANDFALL: Category 2

(N.C. STATE UNIVERSITY AND THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE)

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Renewable energy effort faces hurdles

Nov. 15, 2003
Charlotte Observer
By Bruce Henderson, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 Charlotte Observer

Untapped sun, wind and organic resources are like found gold, experts say, rich enough to someday supply a third of North Carolina's electricity.

But catching the wind won't be simple. It has to overcome the indifference of legislators and the public, and resistance from big utilities.

Renewable energy pollutes less than coal and isn't burdened by the safety and waste issues of nuclear, the sources of nearly all N.C. power. It's a home-grown, free and theoretically inexhaustible fuel.

But "green energy" is also easy to ignore. The technology is relatively expensive in an era of cheap power and will need subsidies to flower.

NC GreenPower, launched last month, is the country's first statewide renewable-energy program. The program was approved by the N.C. Utilities Commission and all of the state's major utilities are taking part. Its success will ride on how many electric customers fork over an extra $4 a month to pump more green electricity into the state.

"We're asking people to help us right now, and it's not a good time (economically) to be asking," said Bill Lee, who runs a small hydroelectric plant in Alamance County.

GreenPower, in any case, is widely viewed as only a first step. Expanding the use of renewables faces a long line of speed bumps:

• Utilities such as Duke Power will fight the mandatory measures that clean-energy advocates insist are needed.

• Legislators have, thus far, shown little interest in pushing incentives that many other states have adopted.

• The state's most promising undeveloped resource, wind, is compromised by a law that doesn't allow windmills on mountain ridges.

• State money for research and development is running out.

Those obstacles suggest North Carolina's energy future could look a lot like its past, despite public concern over power-plant emissions, blackouts, natural gas prices and global warming.

With N.C. electrical demand expected to grow by 35 percent by 2020, clean-energy advocates say now is the time to invest in renewables.

A federal energy bill to be released today was expected to include some incentives for renewables and alternative fuels, but environmental critics blasted it for developing oil and gas on public lands.

Coal is under fire for its impact on health. Power-plant emissions help trigger thousands of asthma attacks a year, the state estimates, and contain fine particles believed to shorten thousands of lives. Environmentalists attacked recent Bush administration rule changes that may let some plants avoid the cost of new pollution devices.

But coal power is also cheap and plentiful. Because green electricity costs more to produce, utilities say, mandates to use it would jack up rates.

"For legislators and Utility Commission members, the first question they're always going to ask is, `How much is this going to cost?' " said Julie Hans of the Raleigh-based utility Progress Energy. "We're the ones who are expected to give legislators the reality of the situation."

Duke and Progress can rightly claim credit for agreeing to deeply curb emissions. Duke alone says it will spend $1.5 billion to comply with the 2002 Clean Smokestacks Act.

That's praise-worthy, said Michael Shore of the advocacy group Environmental Defense. But, he added, "their job doesn't end with putting more controls on their smokestacks."

Green power a hard sale

GreenPower will serve as a state referendum and a marketing vehicle for renewable energy."With 1 percent participation, NC GreenPower would be phenomenally successful," said Richard Harkrader, a retired Durham architect who is vice chairman of its board.

"The hard thing in North Carolina is that nobody has had to think about where their power comes from or what its environmental attributes are. It's a pretty hard sale, especially initially."

GreenPower's goals are modest: sell enough electricity to power about 3,000 homes in 2004 and 10,000 homes by 2006. About 2,100 Duke and Progress customers have signed on.

South Carolina's state-owned utility, Santee Cooper, also offers a green-power program powered by methane gas from the Horry County landfill. This year the utility said it would build plants at three more landfills.

The N.C. program is intended to develop new, in-state sources of power. Wind and solar -- the environmentally purest technologies -- are to provide 15 percent of what's offered to residential customers within three years, with methane gas captured from landfills to provide the rest.

Some environmentalists criticize the program for including power producers, such as hydro plants and incinerators, they say might not be green enough. Biomass, a catch-all category that encompasses organic wastes from wood debris to hog manure, is the state's largest potential renewable source but also its most controversial.

In the cause of cleaner air, said Matt Wasson of the Boone-based group Appalachian Voices, consumers could make a bigger difference by investing in energy-efficient lightbulbs.

Subsidies not enough

But most advocates agree on wind's green credentials. North Carolina has the best wind potential in the Southeast, says the Energy Center at Appalachian State University.

Carolina Green Energy LLC, formed in August, plans to build wind farms near North Carolina's rural coast, carefully out of sight from the beach. The company hopes to have its first farm online by 2005.

"The good news is there are not very many competitors. The bad news is there's a good reason for that," said Carolina Green Energy CEO Tim Toben, who sold his Chapel Hill database-marketing firm in 1999.

Carolina Green Energy's is one of 46 proposals, 31 from new generators, to sell electricity to GreenPower. The program will boost these producers with a small subsidy in addition to the price utilities pay for their electricity.

But the subsidy alone can't sustain renewable generators struggling under high infrastructure costs, Toben said. Their longterm survival, he said, will depend on utilities paying higher rates.

Federal law says utilities must buy some electricity from small producers. Prices are based on costs the utilities avoid by not making the power themselves. And that price has steadily dropped. The peak rates Duke pays have fallen 27 percent in the past 20 years, the Utilities Commission says.

Five or six of the state's three dozen small hydro plants have closed in the past five years, said Bill Lee of Haw River Hydro. He thinks small hydros can't last another 20 years without help.

Suggestions for viability

Legislators and the Utilities Commission could do more to make renewables viable, advocates say. The State Energy Plan, updated this summer, and an assessment commissioned by the State Energy Office echoed key recommendations:

• Consider making utilities get a fixed percentage of their electricity from renewable sources. Then-Gov. George Bush made Texas one of 15 states to adopt renewable portfolio standards, as they are called.

• Adopt net metering, as 33 states have done, allowing owners of renewable-powered systems to get credit from utilities for the excess power they produce. The Utilities Commission will hold a hearing in May.

• Establish a state fund, like those in at least 15 other states, to support renewable research, energy efficiency and alternative-fuel programs. Adding a small monthly fee to all electricity sold in the state, equivalent to about $1 for residential users, would generate about $115 million a year in North Carolina.

A measure to create a trust fund to encourage clean-fuel vehicles, tree planting and renewables research didn't emerge from an N.C. Senate committee this year.

While legislators granted 35 percent tax credits for renewables in 2000, green energy is not "even on the radar of most legislators," said state Sen. Wib Gulley, D-Durham, who sponsored an unsuccessful net-metering bill this year.

"And the major players, the Duke Powers and CP&Ls, both feel that they've done a lot lately and are wary of more changes."

Gulley's bill would have cost customers $21 million a year, Progress Energy says.

The utilities say they have nothing against renewables -- Duke got its start with hydro plants nearly a century ago -- but prefer voluntary approaches like GreenPower.

"We are opposed to a specific mandate that would result in higher costs for customers," said Duke Power spokesman Tom Williams, "or anything that would treat one customer differently from another."

Most states who adopted such measures did so during negotiations over utility deregulation, a dormant issue in North Carolina.

"These things need momentum," said Steve Kalland, associate director of the N.C. Solar Center at N.C. State University. "Right now, I'm not sure we have that momentum."

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Southern lady, Yankee spy

Nov. 16, 2003
News & Observer
By John David Smith
 © Copyright 2003 News & Observer

Elizabeth L. Van Lew loved Virginia and the South, but she hated slavery. She believed that her Confederate brethren had betrayed the Founding Fathers' intentions by destroying the Union. During the Civil War, this Southern belle became a master spy, operating an elaborate espionage network from her family's mansion in Richmond's prestigious Church Hill neighborhood. This bold and passionate woman sacrificed much of her family's fortune and reputation for her ideals, as Wellesley College historian Elizabeth R. Varon shows in this compelling and satisfying biography.

"Southern Lady, Yankee Spy" is also a thrilling detective story filled with clandestine meetings, cloak-and-dagger intrigue, disguises, surveillance and undercover work. While such well-known Civil War women spies as Belle Boyd and Rose O'Neal Greenhow remain shrouded in partisan mythology, Varon has unearthed hard evidence that establishes Van Lew as a genuine heroine of the Civil War era.

Van Lew, according to Varon, "symbolized, more than any other single individual, the existence of an abiding and active Union sentiment in Richmond." Her privileged status as an elite white woman; her resolve; the loyalty of her ex-slaves and pro-Union free blacks; and the credulity if not downright incompetence of Confederate officials enabled Van Lew to establish an amazingly successful Union spy ring in Dixie's capital.

On the surface, Van Lew was a most unlikely Yankee secret agent. Descended from John Van Lew, a wealthy hardware merchant, Elizabeth Van Lew enjoyed the status and privilege that were birthrights of Richmond's high society. In 1850 the family owned 21 slaves -- 14 attached to the Church Hill home and seven on the Van Lews' small farm in Henrico County. Van Lew vacationed at spas in western Virginia where she hobnobbed with other elite Virginians. Richmond socialites expected the beautiful, clever, well-educated and well-traveled Van Lew to find a beau.

Varon's careful sleuthing in Van Lew's papers, deposited at the New York Public Library, unveils another side to Van Lew. Though attached economically and personally to slavery, Van Lew nonetheless "led a kind of double life" -- harboring inner doubts about the "peculiar institution," judging it the taproot of all that was wrong about the South. Influenced by her mother's moral qualms about slavery and the racial status quo, Van Lew came to see that slavery enslaved whites and blacks. It made white Southerners anti-democratic, arrogant, coercive, intellectually backward, self-righteous and violent. It stunted the growth of free labor in the region and fomented secession. Slavery, Van Lew came to see, was cruel and inhumane for blacks, a blot on the South's "civilization."

Bound to her own slaves by mutual dependence and affection, Van Lew manumitted them secretly as the Civil War approached, thereby absolving the bondspeople from the racial and legal proscriptions accorded free blacks under Virginia law. According to Varon, the 1861 secession crisis "radicalized Van Lew, gradually disabusing her of the notion that one could compromise with slaveholders and slavery." Someone who knew slavery firsthand and possessed a sense of noblesse oblige, she was determined to destroy its snakelike grip on her beloved region.

Van Lew considered the Confederates treasonous and tyrannous. Years of mistreating black slaves had transformed them into despots and brutes. Van Lew interpreted the Civil War as an American Jeremiad -- "as the instrument of the nation's moral redemption." For her, resistance to the hated "secesh" became a moral responsibility.

Van Lew's double life emerged as the Civil War unfolded. To divert suspicion from her neighbors, she made public displays of loyalty to the Confederacy and pretended to have compassion for the suffering men in gray. Such acts proved less than convincing, however, because Van Lew openly sympathized with and provided charity to Union prisoners incarcerated in Richmond's military prisons. Though fearful of arrest and possible banishment, Van Lew brazenly evaded counterintelligence efforts by Confederate authorities by cajoling, flattering, manipulating and outwitting them. Contemporary understandings of gender and class also shielded Van Lew from detection. Confederate officers foolishly underestimated her; they were incredulous that "a Christian lady" of Van Lew's social and economic prominence could be disloyal to the "Cause," much less a spy.

Behind the scenes, however, Van Lew, with the aid of her servants and other Richmond blacks, operated a fifth column network. Van Lew supplied money and various covers for the 109 Union troops who escaped from Richmond's notorious Libby prison on Feb. 9, 1864. She also coordinated activities of Richmond's underground loyalists, bribed Confederate guards and officials, hid fugitive Union soldiers in her home, plotted with Union sympathizers, and corresponded with Federal commanders through a corps of couriers, messengers and scouts. She reported on what she saw: the status of Confederate military installations, troop deployments and war materiel, encrypting her dispatches in a secret code with invisible ink.

Union victory in 1865 provided Van Lew new opportunities and challenges. During Reconstruction, she labored tirelessly for black civil and educational rights and for the compensation and protection of white loyalists. In 1869, President Ulysses S. Grant, whom Van Lew had served as a spymaster, rewarded Van Lew's wartime service by appointing her Richmond's postmaster, an influential political post heretofore held by men. Though she performed well, Van Lew's political independence alienated Republicans, her egalitarian racial politics disturbed Richmond's conservative white majority, and her gender left Van Lew vulnerable to sexist allegations of inferiority. In 1877, President Rutherford B. Hayes' effort to placate Southern Democrats led to Van Lew's ouster and the appointment of William W. Forbes, whom she described as a "Confederate colonel of loose character." Van Lew spent her last years isolated and shunned by her neighbors. As the cult of the "Lost Cause" enveloped white Southerners, Virginians branded her "Crazy Bet" -- an infamous traitor and demented spinster.

In fact, Van Lew had long considered the slaveholding secessionists around her the crazy ones. A woman who defied social conventions and male prerogatives, Van Lew acted from what she termed "true patriotism" to suppress the Confederacy's "reign of terror." Varon's superb book uncovers Richmond's female-led Unionist circle and establishes Van Lew's proper place in Southern and women's history.

John David Smith is Graduate Alumni Distinguished Professor of History at N.C. State University. He recently published a critical edition of "The Negro in the American Rebellion, His Heroism and His Fidelity" (1867) by William Wells Brown.

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Smaller classes pay off

Nov. 16, 2003
News & Observer
By Michael L. Walden
 © Copyright 2003 News & Observer

We've all heard it scores of times: education is the key to our future economy. Particularly as North Carolina transforms from its traditional industries to the businesses of a new, knowledge-based economy, a well-educated and skilled work force is crucial to a better standard of living. But how can we improve the educational performance of our K-12 students?

Some say spending more money is not the answer. They cite, for example, statistics showing that the District of Columbia's schools spend twice as much per pupil as North Dakota does, and yet D.C. students perform at the bottom of the academic rankings.

Selective statistics can be used to make just about any point, and that example is just such a case. In studying student achievement among the states, it is necessary to account for differences in their cost of living and in the students' socioeconomic background. When this is done, a positive link is found between per-pupil instructional spending of states and student academic performance.

Indeed, my research using data from the 2000 National Assessment of Educational Progress found that a state's student academic performance rises 1 percent for every 10 percent increase in state instructional per-pupil spending, after adjusting for what a dollar purchases in the state and for student family characteristics.

In contrast, I found no link between state per-pupil noninstructional spending -- on items like administration, transportation and support services -- and student academic performance.

But what kind of instructional spending helps students most? Is it spending on equipment, supplies, assistants to help classroom teachers, higher teacher salaries -- or spending on hiring more teachers to lower class sizes?

To help answer this question, a research assistant and I conducted a study of all public school districts in North Carolina over several years. We analyzed the relationships of 17 alternative measures of student academic performance to various school "inputs" as well as to socioeconomic characteristics of students.

Unfortunately, we did not find one school input that was positively related to student academic performance for all 17 measures. However, the school factor most consistently associated with better student scores was lower class sizes. This same result has been found in similar recent research from other states.

This simple finding appeals to our common sense. With fewer students in a class, teachers can give more attention and help to each individual, and teachers should also be better able to maintain classroom control. Both results should lead to improved learning.

My research did have one sobering finding. Teachers and other instructional "inputs" seem to have limited impact on academic performance. I estimate that changing school instructional inputs collectively can, at most, change average student performance by at most 20 percent, and usually less than 10 percent.

A much greater influence on how well a student does in school comes from the student's family and from the student. In short, schools can only do so much.

So where does this leave North Carolina policymakers, citizens and parents interested in improving the learning environment? I think there are three messages.

First, money does matter. More money spent in the classroom can lead to better student results.

Second, the biggest outcome per buck spent seems to come from simply reducing class sizes. So, within existing school budgets, I recommend shifting as much money as possible into hiring more classroom teachers to reduce class sizes. If classroom space is an issue, divide existing classrooms into two by running framing and wallboard down the middle of the rooms!

But third, and perhaps most importantly, recognize that student learning is a collaborative effort between the schools and the students' families. Recognition of this fact leads to other critical questions: What responsibility does government have in improving the learning environment in students' families? Can government be effective at all in pursuing this goal?

It's fair to predict that North Carolina's economic future will be directly tied to the educational attainment of its residents. Continually evaluating what works and doesn't work in improving learning is a job that academics and professional educators should constantly pursue and communicate to parents and policymakers alike.

Michael L. Walden is a William Neal Reynolds distinguished professor in the department of agricultural and resource economics at N.C. State University.

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Expert: State must close “achievement gap”

Nov. 14, 2003
News 14 Carolina
By Mitch Kokai, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 TWEAN Newschannel of Raleigh, L.L.C. dba News 14 Carolina

Federal education standards could force the state to fight the so-called "achievement gap."

Community leaders say they want to see black students score as well as whites on standardized tests.

"Education is the key to success and having strong communities,” said Raleigh City Councilman James West. “It's very important to the cities as well. It’s very important for all of our young people to have the opportunity for educational success."

That’s why West and others gathered at N.C. State University to hear from a national expert. Tom Houlihan leads the Council of Chief State School Officers.

"If we do not raise the lower-level students in terms of their performance, we'll never be able to have the kind of work force that we're going to need,” Houlihan said. “Plus, those folks are just not going to have the quality of life that's going to be demanded in the future."

The federal government wants states to close the so-called "achievement gap" between whites and minorities. They’re using legislation called "No Child Left Behind."

“I don't think you'll find much happiness about the bill from a lot of people, primarily educators, and that's understandable because it represents a major change,” Houlihan continued. “It's going to take leaders from all levels, from educators to the corporate world and higher ed, to be able to make this thing actually work."

Community leaders say North Carolina needs to take steps to help all children succeed in school. They say they hope “No Child Left Behind" will make a difference.

"This is a knowledge age, and that an investment in education at every stage is exactly what we need to do in order to maintain the leadership position that the United States has enjoyed for so long,” said N.C. State Chancellor Marye Anne Fox.

Supporters say investments now will help North Carolina produce more leaders.

State education leaders just wrapped up a series of town-hall meetings on the "Achievement Gap." The Department of Public Instruction is focusing on closing that gap.

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Options: Conference to explore new crops

Nov. 15, 2003
Winston-Salem Journal
By David Bare, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 Winston-Salem Journal

Something of a renaissance may be about to take hold of North Carolina agriculture. In the land of tobacco, the little guy scrambling to get by is finding that the fields are fertile with possibilities.

The Forsyth County Cooperative Extension Agency, N.C. State University, N.C. A&T State University Agricultural Extension Service and the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services have combined forces to create a one-day conference to explore these possibilities.

The "Putting Small Acreage to Work Conference" will be held from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. next Saturday at the Forsyth County Cooperative Extension Service at 1450 Fairchild Drive.

According to Mark Tucker, a cooperative extension agent for Forsyth County, the conference grew out of the search for alternative crops for tobacco farmers, but interest in it has been strong and diverse. Participants are expected to come from as far away as the mountain counties and Raleigh.

As of earlier this week, 90 participants had registered for the conference.

A dozen possibilities

A planning committee made up of representatives of the organizing agencies developed a list of 12 alternative-agricultural ventures that seemed best suited to the area. Although the list is regional, much of the information that will be covered is applicable in any part of the state.

The program will include two general sessions and participants will be able to choose four of the 12 breakout sessions to attend. Researchers and growers of strawberries, herbs, grapes, heirloom vegetables, cut flowers, sweet corn, specialty melons, organic vegetables and blueberries will conduct the sessions. Other sessions include the raising of goats and home processing and agro-tourism - farming or production done in such a way that it draws tourists.

The equipment needed by smaller landowners and cultural and marketing techniques will be explored. Tucker says that organizers have asked each presenter to discuss what it takes to get started in an enterprise, what the production involves - plant care, insect control, harvesting - and marketing the crop.

Tucker said he found the home-processing session particularly interesting. That session will explore how to take the harvest one step farther - for example, selling peach ice cream at a peach orchard.

He told of one farmer who bought excess strawberries to produce wine until his grape harvest came in. The additional regulation that farmers are subject to when offering a processed food will also be explored.

Specialty melons

The specialty melon session will discuss experiences with the Sprite melon, a Japanese crisp-flesh type of honeydew. The growing and marketing of the melon developed under the Specialty Crop Program in Eastern North Carolina with the goal of creating a specialty crop for the area. The SCP identifies potential new crops and does field research into their production and post-harvest handling and researches and develops markets for the product.

The Sprite melon venture was successful. The one to one-and-a-half pound melon is about the size of a grapefruit and can be more than 18 percent sugar, 25 to 30 percent more than most other melons.

Alex Hitt, an organic producer and the owner of Peregrine Farms, will lead the opening session on evaluating a new enterprise. David Bradshaw of Clemson University will discuss producing heirloom vegetables.

Jeanine Davis, the extension specialist for NCSU in Fletcher, will discuss herbs.

Carol Kline, the director of tourism for HandMade In America, will talk about agro-tourism, or what she likes to call rural tourism.

HandMade In America, a nonprofit group based in Asheville, helps rural crafters find markets for their products. Though the group, which serves 23 counties, started out working with artists, there has been a natural overlap with farmers, Kline said.

Agrotourism has been around in Europe for centuries but the United States is just beginning to catch on, Kline said. North Carolina is a leader in rural tourism, and Kline said she will explore the current state of agrotourism.

Kline cited as one example a goat farmer whose visitors leave with hats made from goat felt.

HandMade In America works on such large projects as the guidebook "Farms, Gardens and Countryside Trails in Western North Carolina" and on more intimate projects such as arranging on-site workshops with farmers.

The cost of registration for conference is $25 a person through Monday. On Tuesday, the fee increases to $50 a person. The fee includes a meal, breaks and resource materials for all 12 sessions. For more information, call the Cooperative Extension office at 767-8213. Registration brochures can be downloaded at www.ces.ncsu.edu/forsyth.

Home-and-garden activities

• Flowers in the Winter: 3 p.m. Sunday in the auditorium of Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts in Old Salem. Terry Taylor, a Master Gardener alumnus, will discuss the history of forcing bulbs in water and their use in Colonial American homes, and procedures for scheduling, preparing and planting and tending the bulbs. He will also offer creative ideas for containers and displays. Participants will receive bulbs to take home to plant. The cost of the workshop is $10, and registration is required. For more information, call (336) 721-7360.

• Bonkers for Bulbs: 7 p.m. Monday at the Central Library. Fall is bulb-planting time. Learn from an expert about selecting, planting and caring for many varieties of bulbs. For more information, call 727-2264 extension 5.

• A Southern Mantel for the Holidays: 10 a.m. Tuesday in the auditorium of Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts in Old Salem. Eva Miller will discuss the ornamentation of fireplace mantels and shelves for the holidays. She will demonstrate several different approaches using natural materials from backyard gardens, local woods and meadows as well as other types of imaginative objects and accessories.

The cost of the workshop is $10, and registration is required. For more information, call 721-7360.

• Harvest Home Decorating: 9:30 a.m. and 7 p.m. Tuesday at Reynolda Gardens of Wake Forest University. Make a beautiful arrangement for the fall table with dried herbs, vines, and flowers, all grown at Reynolda Gardens.

The session will be led by Camilla Wilcox, the curator of education at the gardens. The cost is $25 and includes supplies. For more information, call 758-3485 or visit the gardens' Web site at www.wfu.edu/gardens.

• Toward a Four-Season Garden: 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the J.C. Raulston Arboretum in Raleigh. Douglas Ruhren, the head gardener at the Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden, will discuss how to create a garden that is vibrant in all seasons. In addition to plant selections, Ruhren will discuss planting techniques that are useful in developing such a garden. The discussion is free for arboretum members. Admission is $5 for nonmembers. For more information, call (919) 515-3132.

• Herbal Vinegars and Spreads: 7 p.m. Thursday at the Forsyth County Cooperative Extension Office, 1450 Fairchild Drive. Yolanda Pickett, a family and consumer educator with the extension service, will lead this meeting of the Herbal Friends.

• The Perennial Border in Fall:1 p.m. Friday, at JC Raulston Arboretum in Raleigh. Todd Lasseigne, the assistant director of the arboretum, will lead a tour of the perennial border, which features asters, salvias, helianthus, and other plants that are at their best in autumn. For more information, call (919) 515-3132.

• If you have a gardening question or story idea, write to David Bare in care of the Features Dept., Winston-Salem Journal, P.O. Box 3159, Winston-Salem, NC 27102-3159 or send e-mail to his attention to dyoung@wsjournal.com

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Effort continues to improve river

Nov. 16, 2003
Sun Journal
By Sue Book, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 Sun Journal

New Bern's early settlement and choice as North Carolina's colonial capital was directly related to its situation on the Neuse River.

Famous explorer and co-founder of New Bern, John Lawson, found in his early 1700's exploration a naturally navigable waterway nearly five miles across at its widest point. From its beginnings in Orange and Person counties to its mouth at the Pamlico Sound, the Neuse has more than 3,000 stream miles in its assorted tributaries in its 23-county basin.

From the freshwater Falls of the Neuse in Wake County to its brackish water in Craven and Pamlico counties as the river approaches the sea, the 200-mile-long river was then full of the aquatic life that that could be farmed.

The river's 6,234-square-mile flood basin encompasses about 8.8 percent of the state. Forests make up 34 percent of the basin and wetlands and open waters account for another 22 percent, with the rest of the Neuse River Basin composed of about 4 percent barren land or scrub growth.

Even 300 years later only about 5 percent of the basin is developed. About 1.01 million people -- 14.9 percent of the state's residents -- the majority of whom live in Durham, Raleigh, Cary, Smithfield, Goldsboro, Kinston, and New Bern -- live in the area of the Neuse and more than half of them continue to get their drinking water from the river.

But there are no edible clams in the Neuse River now, and there haven't been for more than three decades. Fish kills that have been monitored and studied since the mid 1990s continue despite efforts to identify and eliminate their causes with three, including one of more than a million fish, occurring this fall.

The wetlands of the basin continue to spawn many species of aquatic life that form the basis for some commercial seafood operations but fewer and fewer people make their living farming the Neuse.

The Neuse River Foundation held its annual meeting Nov. 9 in New Bern and celebrated the 10th anniversary of a riverkeeper program that posts sentinels at the upper and lower ends of the river to monitor its use and advocate for changes to insure its survival.

On Wednesday and Thursday, North Carolina State University and the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service will join other groups and examine "Five Years of Progress." Among those sponsoring the two-day seminar, which will feature tours of the river, include the Water Resource Research Institute, the Neuse River Education Team, the N.C. Association of Environmental Professionals, the N.C. Water Resources Association and the Soil Science Society of North Carolina.

First Neuse Riverkeeper Rick Dove, who now serves as southeastern representative of the Waterkeeper Alliance, thinks the two groups' assessment of the river's condition will be worlds apart.

Dove said he knows improvements have been made with water quality regulations, which were adopted federally in the 1970s and in the state in the early '90s. Still, he feels the statistics being used to support improvements in the river's water quality are as much a result of five years of drought as any improvements in nitrogen decreases. Nitrogen is believed to be the leading cause of pollution in the river.

Putting action to his motto that "the river must be heard," he has kept a running chronology of events that kill fish in front of his own Neuse River home. This year, he dogged state monitors who first maintained a major kill was caused by a wind shift, until they conceded that a manmade nutrient overload was its actual cause.

Dove said his "reception was not so great at first. It was very confrontational to go before the Craven County commissioners and say 'no more pipes into the Neuse,' but we made that stick.

"We had a rocky start but it is all the difference in the world once we had convinced local citizens," said Dove, who began as a Neuse advocate in 1990 after a career with the Marine Corps. Upon retiring, he began a seafood business in Havelock, and what he found made the river's plight his own crusade.

Eight pipes for wastewater treatment and stormwater either have been or will shortly be pulled from the Neuse in Craven and Pamlico counties, where he sees leadership now in favor of river projects.

"But even today the state is not on board. I thought I could fix the river in five years but this is a work in progress," said Dove.

He sees that progress threatened by a federal policy implemented in early 2003, the 30-year anniversary of the Clean Water Act, to allow regions to trade water quality standards for nutrients, sediments and other pollutants. One such trade is being pursued by the town of Butner, which wants to pay the Bay River Metropolitan Sewer District $2 million over a 15-year period for the nutrient effluent progress that has been made downstream in the same watershed.

"Trading is not a license to pollute or to sell pollution," said Tracy Mehan, the Environmental Protection Agency's assistant administrator for water, who sees the trading policy as "an approach that offers greater efficiency in achieving water quality goals on a watershed bases. It allows one source to meet its regulatory obligation by using pollutant reductions created by another source that has lower pollution control costs."

Modeled after the air quality trading policy in place for more than 10 years, water-quality trading attempts to capitalize on the economics of scale and allow more flexibility in times when most government entities that provide wastewater treatment are having to evaluate costs, trim budgets and reallocate assets to maintain primary functions.

Mehan said the "EPA does not support trading that delays implementation of an approved total maximum daily load" for a given watershed.

With $48 billion being spent annually across the country, Mehan said the savings of between $658 million and $7.5 billion annually could, in the big picture, clean the country's water faster.

But municipal wastewater treatment execution of required standards already often falls short of even well-intended philosophy. Raleigh's wastewater system's frequent spills into the Neuse offer evidence of sometimes questionable intentions.

The problems in that operation and the way they were brought to light by people who would have been reluctant to take similar charges to authorities offer evidence that the riverkeeper's citizen-based approach to monitoring the river is working, environmentalists say.

"The EPA is now actively investigating this department (Raleigh) that I feel had been under reporting or not reporting for some time and when caught, blamed it on their own department personnel when it was really an ongoing philosophy," said Dean Naujoks, upper Neuse riverkeeper. "Now they have to answer for it."

Those groups monitoring the Neuse River name the main pollutants as sediment, organics and nutrients, particularly nitrogen. The state Department of Environment and Natural Resources required a 30 percent reduction of nitrogen in the river by 2001 to reduce algae blooms implicated in fish kills.

It has helped but the hog lagoons of the Neuse Basin continue to concern environmentalists looking to further reduce nitrogen loads.

There are currently seven research projects in the Neuse Basin being conducted by researchers at N.C. State University, the majority of which focus on preventing agricultural runoff and promoting sustainable farming systems for farmers. One project looks at protecting urban water quality with stormwater detention basins.

There are also 17 regional projects that are directly applicable to the river basin, some targeting the effects of water pollution on the aquatic resources. Others focus on the control of polluted runoff from agricultural land uses and urban stormwater, many of which will be examined this week.

From the attention it is getting now, a lot of people are apparently listening to the river and looking for ways to restore its viability and make it cleaner for the estimated 3 million people expected in the next 20 years.

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Aquarium bids for expansion funds

Nov. 16, 2003
Sun Journal
By Patricia Smith, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 Sun Journal

Delayed project scheduled to feature a 360,000-gallon tank with replica submarine

PINE KNOLL SHORES -- Those who have visited the N.C. Aquariums at Fort Fisher or Roanoke Island recently might have some idea of the scope of the renovation and expansion project planned for the Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores.

But the concept and the layout will be very different, said Pine Knoll Shores Aquarium Director Jay Barnes.

While the Fort Fisher aquarium exhibits focus on Waters of the Cape Fear and the Roanoke Island aquarium focuses on Waters of the Outer Banks, the new Pine Knoll Shores aquarium will take the more encompassing theme of "Mountains to the Sea."

"When visitors come back in 2006 I don't think they'll recognize the old building," Barnes said.

The facility will have tripled in size from 29,000 square feet to 93,000 square feet and it will house several new aquariums, including a 306,000-gallon saltwater tank with a 10-by-62-foot window.

A replica of the World War II U-352 German submarine sunken off Cape Lookout will sit inside with a full compliment of ocean fish, including sharks and stingrays, Barnes said.

That will be part of the Ocean Gallery, one of five galleries representing different geographical areas of the state.

A smaller, 50,000-gallon, tank containing a replica of the Queen Anne's Revenge shipwreck site will sit in the Coastal Waters Gallery, which will also include two touch tanks.

The Mountains Gallery will include a rock-faced waterfall.

Aquarium officials are currently accepting bids for what is estimated to be a $24 million project. Construction could begin as early as January, Barnes said.

The project, however, rests on approval by the Council of State of an unusual financing plan that has drawn some criticism at the legislative level. The Council of State meets Dec. 2.

The plan calls for the State Property Office to lease the Pine Knoll Shore Aquarium to the N.C. Aquarium Society for a 23-year term, said Aquarium Society Associate Director Mark Joyner. The Aquarium Society, a private, non-profit organization that supports all three state aquariums, would borrow money and complete the expansion and renovations, then sublease the facility back to the state.

Admission receipts from all three aquariums would pay for the $27 million revenue bond debt, Joyner said. The Aquarium Society projects average ticket sales at $4.5 million per year while the loan payment would be less than $2 million, he said.

Earlier this month, a legislative oversight subcommittee objected to the plan following a memo to House budget-writers by a legislative fiscal analyst, the Associated Press reported. The financing project hasn't been specifically approved by the General Assembly, while earmarking proceeds from a special fund such as for admission fees could undermine efforts to control future budget shortfalls, analyst Lynn Muchmore wrote.

"Its long-term implications directly affect the fiscal responsibilities of the General Assembly," Muchmore wrote.

The General Assembly in its 2002 session adopted legislation modifying a law that already allowed the aquariums to use admission receipts to fund new exhibits so that ticket sales could be used to pay for expansion projects, as well. The modification, passed as part of a technical corrections bill, also deleted a requirement that expenditures of the money required legislative approval.

Sen. Scott Thomas, D-Craven, who sits on the Governmental Operations Commission, worked with the commission chair, Sen. President Pro-tem Marc Basnight, D-Dare, to remove the issue from the full commission meeting agenda.

The action concerned some commission members.

"It just seems to me to be a way of circumventing the appropriations process," said Rep. Rex Baker, R-Stokes, a co-chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and a co-chairman of the subcommittee.

Thomas said he was disappointed that some legislators tried to railroad the project.

"Expanding the aquarium will create jobs and boost tourism in our area," Thomas said.

An economic impact analysis by Dr. Michael L. Walden, Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor at N.C. State University, found the planned aquarium expansion would create 193 jobs and generate $6.1 million in incomes each year in Carteret, Craven, Jones, Onslow and Pamlico counties.

Expansion of the Pine Knoll Shores Aquarium has been on hold since 1999, when the state took back $15 million that it had appropriated for the project in 1998 and rerouted the money to Hurricane Floyd relief. The Roanoke Island and Fort Fisher aquariums were allowed to complete expansion projects because contracts were already signed.

The following fiscal cycles brought tight budget years and Barnes said the Aquarium Society began looking for other ways to fund the Pine Knoll Shores project.

"We couldn't see any opportunity in the next few years where the money was going to come around," Barnes said.

In 1999, the aquarium had intended to couple the $15 million appropriation with repair and renovation funds for what would have totaled an $18 million project, Barnes said. The increased price tag came partly because of inflation and partly because the scope of the project grew, he said.

During construction, aquarium offices and holding tanks would move to an 11,000 square-foot leased space at Atlantic Station Shopping Center in Atlantic Beach.

"The nature of the construction is so massive -- renovations and additions -- that there's no way that we can stay on site," Barnes said.

In addition to the five galleries, the new aquarium will include a changing exhibit gallery, a new gift shop, a larger auditorium, three new educational classrooms and a catering kitchen, Barnes said.

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Raleigh wants retention ponds to please the eye

Nov. 16, 2003
News & Observer
By Sarah Lindenfeld Hall, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 News & Observer

RALEIGH -- The gurgling fountain, cascading waterfall and flowering grasses hide the real reason for the pools near the entrances to WakeMed's North campus: They clean the stormwater that rolls off the roof and parking lot before it reaches nearby creeks.

City rules required the construction of the pond to protect water quality. But the designers went far beyond the city's requirements; they also wanted to create a place for patients to relax and linger. The job was more costly than a traditional storm water pond, but it won the hospital a city award this year.

Raleigh Appearance Commission members think all stormwater ponds should look so good, and they have a carrot-and-stick proposal to encourage developers to follow WakeMed's example.

The proposed ordinance, scheduled for a public hearing Tuesday, would give developers incentives to turn the ponds into amenities. Developers who chose not to would be required to completely shield the ponds from view with thick evergreens.

The purpose of the ponds is to capture stormwater and to allow dirt, oil and other contaminants to settle before the water moves downstream. Some ponds, however, are eyesores.

" A lot of times they are put in places where it's essentially like having your outhouse by your front door. They are very public," said Charlie Madison, Appearance Commission chairman. "A lot of them are nothing more than mudholes with chain-link fences around them that do nothing more than collect [grocery] carts."

The ponds have proliferated across the country over the past 15 years to meet more stringent federal guidelines for protecting rivers and creeks.

The first ponds were usually afterthoughts; often they were big muddy, mosquito-infested pits dug into the lowest point on the site.

Impetus for review

One pond in particular -- at the 8-year-old Capital Crossing shopping center off Capital Boulevard -- prompted the commission's review.

Last week, cardboard, plastic bags and other trash littered the edges of the muddy, weedy stormwater pond near the Sam's Club and next to Calvary Drive. A grocery cart lay half-submerged, and a child's bike sat on rocks near the spot where the chain-link fence that rings the pond was broken.

Over time, pond designs have evolved and improved. Some newer ponds have elaborate landscaped features with fountains, paths, flowering grasses and aquatic plants.

Barbara Doll, water quality specialist for N.C. Sea Grant, a federal- and state-funded program at N.C. State University, said designers are designing ponds with shallow edges and with terracing above the water to improve appearance and safety.

The Raleigh proposal would treat stormwater like Dumpsters and heating and air-conditioning units, requiring them to be kept out of sight. Fast-growing evergreens would be the screening method of choice. Fences could be installed, but they'd have to be black, forest green or dark brown and hidden by trees or shrubs.

If developers chose to integrate the ponds into the development instead of screening them, the proposal would give them a break on other landscaping requirements, but they'd have to meet certain guidelines.

The ponds would have to share common building materials with the development. The proposal encourages sidewalks or trails for walkers. And it requires developers to work to reduce mosquitoes, including nesting boxes for mosquito-eating birds or bats or stocking the pond with mosquito-eating fish such as the tiny Gambusia affinis, also known as mosquitofish.

Developers would choose from a menu of options depending on whether they were building retention ponds, which hold water all the time, or detention basins, which typically fill up only after a heavy rain.

Upkeep required

Under the proposal, features such as landscaping and fountains must be properly maintained. A broken fountain or uprooted shrubbery would have to be fixed or replaced within 30 days, or the screening requirements would kick in.

If approved, the new rules would go further than what's required elsewhere in the Triangle. Durham and Chapel Hill have no requirements for landscaping of stormwater ponds.

In Cary, developers have had to screen stormwater ponds since 1999, typically with evergreens. Now, according to Ricky Barker, Cary's associate planning director, town officials are looking at ways to make the ponds something to show off.

Grady Matthews, vice president of retail development for Crosland, which is developing Poyner Place near Triangle Town Center and another project near Cameron Village, said his firm already looks for ways to transform the ponds into amenities. Poyner Place, for example, will have a 2-acre pool with landscaping and a filtration system to keep the water looking good. Shops and restaurants will sit near the pond.

" We want to provide a quality shopping center," he said. "I don't know if I want it to be mandated by someone else."

Madison, of the city's appearance commission, said officials know that developers can't make every pond serene and attractive. And the new guidelines would not apply to ponds developed before any new rules are passed.

" You can't always put lipstick on a pig and have it succeed," Madison said. "It's not like you're going to turn a site that really has problems with its topography and make this wonderful little pool or fountain. And neither does everybody have money to do that. But we want to encourage it."

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Footnotes

Nov. 17, 2003
News & Observer
By staff writer
© Copyright 2003 News & Observer

College-going rate is record

The UNC system recorded its highest ever college-going rate this fall among North Carolina high school graduates. Thirty-one percent of recent high school graduates in the state enrolled in the 16 campus-system this fall.

"This is a source of great pride to me," UNC President Molly Broad said Friday.

The statewide college-going rate, which reflects students at community colleges, private colleges and UNC campuses, is about 66 percent.

Enrollment in the UNC system reached a record 183,347 students this fall -- up 6,380 students or 3.6 percent over last year. It was the third year in a row that the campuses exceeded the previous year's enrollment by 6,000 students or more.

The campuses also are more racially diverse. Minority enrollment increased by 7.1 percent and accounts for 29 percent of overall enrollment at UNC campuses. African-American enrollment was up 7.3 percent; American Indian, up 2.9 percent; Asian, up 5.5 percent; and Hispanic, up 1.1 percent.

Some tenured profs deficient

Public university professors who were judged not quite up to snuff in post-tenure reviews reached 3 percent over a five-year period, according to a new analysis by the UNC system.

The UNC Board of Governors adopted a process for performance review of tenured faculty in 1997. Since 1998-99, the first year the procedures were in place, 128 faculty across the system were found deficient.

Systemwide, there are 10,000 full-time faculty members, and about half are tenured. During the five-year period, 4,119 were reviewed.

Professors are reviewed by peers. Those deemed unsatisfactory have participated in mandatory development plans, and some have subsequently retired. One was fired, UNC officials said.

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People

Nov. 17, 2003
News & Observer
By staff writer
© Copyright 2003 News & Observer

Warren H. Casey and Mark D. Stowers have been named Distinguished Alumni Award winners for 2003 by the University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Casey, of Knightdale, is manager for investigative pathology and toxicology at

GlaxoSmithKline Inc., where he designs and coordinates research into drug-induced toxicity. He was honored for his leadership in pharmaceutical microbiology and toxicology.

Stowers is president and chief executive officer of the Michigan Biotechnology Institute in Lansing, Mich. The nonprofit research-and-development institute works to develop and commercialize agricultural biotechnology. He was cited for his work in microbial and agricultural biotechnology and his support to the university.

Kathryn Moore, dean of the College of Education, received the Leadership Award from the Association for the Study of Higher Education. Moore has been at NCSU since 2000.

Richard F. Keltie, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and associate dean of academic affairs in the College of Engineering, has been elected a Fellow of ASME International. Keltie has been a faculty member since 1981.

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Biotech in crosshairs

Nov. 16, 2003
Fayetteville Observer
By Michael Clinebell, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 Fayetteville Observer

Cape Fear region community colleges are trying to get a biotechnology training center that they hope will bring the Raleigh-clustered industry here.

North Carolina has a $64 million startup plan to train biotechnology workers for manufacturing jobs.

In January, the state's community college system will accept applications from colleges to house one of five state training centers.

Each center will have a different focus, such as bioprocessing or agricultural biotechnology. A chosen school will lead skill development in the college system statewide.

Possibly at stake is help in attracting biotechnology companies to the region of a chosen school.

Some college presidents in the region are trying to coordinate efforts, though they may end up competing, to get a training center.

Eric McKeithan, president of Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington, has invited possible partners from other schools to a Dec. 1 meeting in Wilmington.

McKeithan said he is not so concerned about which college in the southeast gets a training center but that all area schools can contribute to and benefit from the center.

"We've got to position southeastern North Carolina to be on the front edge of this wave if biotechnology is going to be the big boom that everybody predicts."

Biotechnology, a process that uses living organisms to manufacture products, employs about 18,500 in the state and is growing about 10 to 15 percent a year, according to the North Carolina Biotechnology Center.

Of the state's 149 biotech companies, 75 percent are in the Raleigh area.

The North Carolina Council for Entrepreneurial Development's annual survey of venture investments in the state said $284.77 million went to life science investments last year.

That is 50.2 percent of the total amount invested in the state in 2002.

North Carolina is third to biotech leaders California with $2.12 billion invested in life sciences and Massachusetts with $716.65 million invested.

As the industry has grown, some of the companies have been short of workers.

Sam Taylor, executive vice president of North Carolina Biosciences Organization, an industry lobbying group, said biotech companies started complaining several years ago about a shortage of trained employees.

"They were stealing people from each other," Taylor said.

The solution led them to the Golden Leaf Foundation, established in 1999 to distribute $2.3 billion the state will receive over 25 years from cigarette makers as part of the 1998 tobacco settlement.

Golden Leaf is giving $60 million to train workers. The biotech industry is giving $4.5 million of in-kind services for work force development.

Of the $64.5 million, about $55 million will go where the biotechnology companies already exist.

North Carolina State University in Raleigh will receive $36 million to build and equip a central biomanufacturing training facility.

North Carolina Central University in Durham will receive $19.1 million for graduate and undergraduate degree programs in applied process research.

The remaining $9.4 million will go to the North Carolina Community College System to set up lead training centers that will recruit and train workers in local communities and serve as a feeder system to the programs at N.C. State and N.C. Central.

Biotechnology companies have not really grown in areas of the state outside Raleigh.

The hope that the industry expands throughout North Carolina is largely based on the growth experience with other industries and the sense that the circle grows inevitably wider.

The competition is intense, and not just from California and Massachusetts.

Representatives from trade and investment agencies in the United Kingdom were at the Southeastern Bio Investor Conference in Pinehurst on Nov. 10-11 trying to attract U.S. biotech companies.

Much of the Cape Fear region is not seen as a draw for biotechnology, which has an urban, university culture.

A federally funded economic development study of the state's 8th Congressional District did not pick biotech as an industry for the region to pursue.

County leaders were generally told to look for companies that make car parts, plastics and mattresses.

Health Sciences and pharmaceutical was a recommendation for Cumberland County.

Biotechnology was not a recommendation for Robeson County, despite the COMtech project, a 612-acre industrial park that is putting in public, educational facilities as the core of what is hoped to become a draw for pharmaceutical and biotech companies.

Low-tech workers

Robeson's work force, many of whom are laid off textile workers, was considered too low-tech for biotechnology, according to the consultants who conducted the study.

But Taylor said the biotech industry is in the nascent stage, and as it grows, manufacturing could spread throughout the state.

"One of the things that we feel is most appealing about this is the potential for biotech to follow the same dispersion pattern as pharmaceutical manufacturing in the 1970s and 1980s," he said.

Taylor used as examples pharmaceutical companies such as Abbott labs, formerly in Laurinburg, DSM Pharmaceuticals Inc. in Greenville, Baxtor in Marion and Merck in Wilson.

He said that as biotech companies look for manufacturing sites, cheap rural land outside Raleigh becomes more important.

James Mullen is chairman and chief executive officer of Biogen, a company that employs about 475 workers at Research Triangle Park.

The company also has operations in Boston, another big biotech center in the United States.

"It is just a fact that they tend to pop up in clusters," Mullen said.

The 'in' sciences

"It's all the fashion now to go after the life sciences," Mullen said. "The region (Cape Fear) is better positioned for agriculture biotechnology."

Agriculture biotechnology plays off the region's strengths and is not an industry sector claimed by RTP, Boston or California, Mullen said.

Monica Doss is executive director of the Council for Entrepreneurial Development which was created 20 years ago to bring companies into RTP.

The biggest challenge, she said, is often getting the first industry because that is the reference other interested companies will use.

"The first call will be to the company that is already there," Doss said.

Charles Chrestman, president of Robeson Community College, said he hopes the biotechnology training centers go to areas that need the jobs, like Robeson County.

"You want to have the work force development and training capacity located in regions of the state that would likely have the jobs exist there and be able to get there in a reasonable driving time," he said.

Larry Norris, president of Fayetteville Technical Community College, sent a letter this week to college presidents in the region asking for a December 10 meeting to coordinate efforts to get a center.

FTCC and Robeson Community College each plan to apply for a center.

Center locations

The North Carolina Community College system has not released the criteria for how the centers will be awarded, but officials with the department have said the intent is to allot the centers in different regions throughout the state.

Cumberland and Robeson counties would be in the same region.

"We will try not to compete with each other because we will be competing with the other regions," Norris said.

The schools could apply for centers with different training focuses, he said.

FTCC was recently approved for a biotechnology associate degree program that will start in 2004.

"If we don't get it, we are going to continue to work anyway," Norris said.

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Committee to study out-of-state cap

Nov. 15, 2003
News & Observer
By staff writer
© Copyright 2003 News & Observer

CHAPEL HILL -- UNC Board of Governors Chairman Brad Wilson on Friday asked the panel's budget and finance committee to study the financial implications of raising the 18 percent cap on out-of-state students in the UNC system.

The proposal to lift the cap to 22 percent, which drew intense opposition, was put on hold indefinitely by the board's educational planning, policies and programs committee this week. The committee voted Thursday to rescind its support of the proposal and reconsider it next year, though no timetable was identified.

The full board had been originally scheduled to vote on the cap increase Friday.

Wilson said any future examination of the issue should include a look at out-of-state tuition. Currently, the out-of-state tuition bill does not cover the full cost of a student's education. The board will study its 2004-05 tuition rates in the next few months.

Also Friday, the board approved a request to the General Assembly for $29.3 million for mold cleanup and building repairs at N.C. Central University and UNC-Pembroke.

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Final word

Nov. 16, 2003
News & Observer
 © Copyright 2003 News & Observer

An update
With opposition intensifying, the UNC Board of Governors last week put on hold until next year a vote on raising the out-of-state admissions cap from 18 percent to 22 percent of the freshman class.

Make outsiders pay

As a taxpayer, I am troubled that UNC-CH is ranked the "best value for out-of-state students" by Money Magazine while they pay only 95 percent of the cost of their education. Perhaps out-of-state tuition should be raised by 20 percent or more. The additional funds are needed for our kids.

As a North Carolinian, I certainly want the best education for our children. Attracting the best professors, providing the best resources and maintaining the best facilities should all be goals of the UNC system. However, I fail to see how having more, albeit brighter, students from out of state enhances the academic experience of our children. Are there any empirical studies that support the idea that North Carolinians would receive a better university education by letting more students from New Jersey in the university system?

As a parent, I remember that in 1999 my son graduated high school with a 3.5 GPA and 1200 SAT. All he ever wanted to do was get his engineering degree at NCSU. Unfortunately, he didn't make the "in-state" cut that year. I remember begging the admissions personnel to no avail and then telling them "if my boy says he's going to graduate from State, then that's what he'll do." He spent his freshman year at Wake Tech and then transferred in as a sophomore. Next month he graduates from State. I'll have to ask him if his education was enhanced by any out-of-state students.

Michael J. Borka

Raleigh

Dumb moves at UNC

If UNC-CH Admissions Director Jerry Lucido was quoted correctly, saying, "We can't be and haven't been for many years the university of the people in that we let everybody in," this must stand as the dumbest thing ever said by a UNC official. Charles Kuralt, whose beautiful words resonate to the contrary, must be turning over in his grave.

Didn't university officials promise North Carolina taxpayers just a few years ago that it was and would always be the university of the people as they pleaded for a $3.1 billion bond issue that was approved in every county in the state?

If the Board of Governors votes to raise the current cap on out-of-state admissions, that will be a dumb move, too. Such a move could become a campaign issue in next year's General Assembly campaigns and be the issue that gives one party a decisive majority.

The university and the people it serves will lose much goodwill from any effort that excludes our sons and daughters from the "people's university."

Charles Heatherly

Cary

All UNCs not equal

When I read Jerry Lucido's comments on increasing the out-of-state student cap, my first thought was disgust that my tax dollars pay his salary. The reality is that all state schools are not equal, and promise of admission to some state school of the 16 rings hollow to a kid whose dream is to go to Chapel Hill.

If the university has the capacity to let in an additional 45 out-of-staters each year and an additional 45 North Carolinians, it could just as easily admit 90 North Carolinians instead.

The primary purpose of UNC-Chapel Hill is to serve the people of North Carolina. It is unfair to the taxpayers who faithfully support the university year after year to deny admission to their sons and daughters in favor of the nebulous goals of "diversity" and "brain gain." What this really is about is the ego of Chancellor [James] Moeser, who apparently is more focused on the school's ranking in U.S. News & World Report than he is on serving the people of North Carolina. If this is his idea of service, then I hope his tenure will be a short one.

Michael Reece

Smithfield

Diversity exists

My daughter is a sophomore at UNC-Chapel Hill. Concerning Chancellor Moeser's comments that the students need to be rubbing shoulders with students from other backgrounds and cultures, I can tell you from the experience my daughter had there, the chancellor doesn't need to worry about having people from outside come in.

My daughter graduated from a small private school in Raleigh, and she was paired up with a roommate from North Carolina who had graduated from a large public high school. The young lady was from a different ethnic and cultural background, and from the first night that we took our daughter to school, that roommate brought a [male student] back to her room about 3 o'clock in the morning where he stayed for the rest of the evening. This continued on a nightly basis until we were able to get our daughter moved.

That is only one of the many personal disappointments that she has had at that school. Fortunately, she has been able to maintain her grades. She is transferring to another school [and] will be leaving, brokenhearted, in December when she finishes her exams.

I can assure you that there are plenty of students already there from other backgrounds and cultures, and I would very much resent as a taxpayer of this state if they allowed other people in. There are plenty of people there already that are different and diverse.

Lee Jones

Johnston County

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North Carolina's universities for N.C. residents

Nov. 16, 2003
Greensboro News & Record
By Giles Lambertson, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 News & Record

North Carolina's in-state argument about out-of-state students has ended for now, which is just as well.

For a complete copy of this article, contact News Services at 5-3470.

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$36 million check goes to UNC board

Nov. 15, 2003
News & Observer
By staff writer
© Copyright 2003 News & Observer

State Treasurer Richard Moore presented a $36 million check Friday to the University of North Carolina system Board of Governors, a check that represents interest earnings from the state's unclaimed cash fund.

The money funds grants that help pay tuition, room and board.

Moore also returns more than $800 in unclaimed cash to individual board members.

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Designing alumni

Nov. 17, 2003
News & Observer
By staff writer
© Copyright 2003 News & Observer

Come see the creations of a select group of N.C. State University alumni who have made a splash in the design world.

A group of seven school of design alums are exhibiting in "Art+Design: The Entrepreneurial Spirit," at the gallery in Brooks Hall, off Pullen Drive.

Among the featured works are the bags of alum Holly Aiken and the custom cosmetic colors at alum Fiquet Bailey's Luxe apothecary shop.

"The purpose of the exhibit is to show all the different things people have done. We all have the same degree," Bailey said.

The exhibit will run through Nov. 22. Gallery hours are Monday to Saturday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday, 1 to 7 p.m.

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TTA seeks artistic ideas

Nov. 17, 2003
News & Observer
By Bruce Siceloff, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 News & Observer

People in West Durham want their new Ninth Street rail station to look old and lived-in, like a well-worn sweater.

Dogwoods and soccer moms would make a comfortable motif for the park-and-ride crowd at the northwest Cary station. At the N.C. State University station, please give them something in red and someone named Jimmy V.

This is just what the Triangle Transit Authority wants to know.

TTA managers are spending lots of evenings at community gatherings this fall seeking inspiration for art that will be integrated into the construction of the stations.

They're serving light suppers, sweet desserts and sweeter tea in neighborhoods from West Durham to North Raleigh. They're handing out colored markers, gathering up every scribble and doodle, and hanging on every word.

It's a new exercise in public art, a series of gabfests driven each night by the committee of whoever shows up.

Early meetings in September and October focused on incorporating artwork into chairs, fences, walls or support columns that will stamp each station with the distinctive character of the surrounding neighborhoods.


In follow-up meetings that began last week and continue with three Raleigh meetings this week, the TTA is looking for two or three unifying regional themes to be reflected in art elements at all 16 Triangle stations. The stations will share some art elements, but others will be unique.

Newcomers to the region often speak of the technology-pumped economy that drew them to the area and of the natural beauty they discovered after they arrived.

"One of the most remarkable things about this area is the greenery," said Cindy H. Charters, a volunteer for the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences who moved in August to Cary from Pittsburgh. "The flowers, all the trees you see here are fabulous."

At discussions in West Durham, Cary and downtown Durham, would-be artists sketched countless combinations of trees, technology symbols and triangles. Their conversations veered back and forth between general themes and detailed design ideas.

"And when we talk about diversity throughout our lovely area here, I'm thinking children," Emilie H. Cullen, a Cary retiree, said in a meeting at Cary's Page-Walker Arts and History Center. "Children's faces. Between the columns, we could have children's faces. Because everybody loves children, and I think ..." Then she was interrupted by a chuckle that questioned her assumption.

"OK," Cullen laughed. "Maybe not everybody."

The idea is to design art elements for 12 rail stations set to open in late 2007 from downtown Raleigh through Cary and Research Triangle Park to Ninth Street in Durham, and four more opening in 2011 in West Durham and North Raleigh.

Art in Transit

The Triangle Transit Authority board approved $800,000 for its Art in Transit project, an average of $50,000 a station. That works out to more than 1 percent of the budgeted cost of station construction, about $70 million, or less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the entire project tab, now pegged at $813 million.

The Federal Transit Administration recommends an art investment between one-half of 1 percent and 5 percent of total project costs. TTA board members agreed with the FTA argument that art enhancements will improve ridership and build neighborhood support for local stations.

"It will provide a space that is more attractive and more agreeable, not cold and institutional as many public spaces are today," Juanita Shearer-Swink, TTA planning and project engineering manager, said in an interview.

At the Hayti Heritage Center in downtown Durham, new residents and old-timers were eager to help design the planned Downtown Durham and Alston Avenue/N.C. Central University stations.

There was broad agreement on art elements recalling the area's tobacco and textile manufacturing history, its contributions to art and music, and its African-American heritage.

"This is a great opportunity to spruce up the neighborhood, make it appealing and tell a story," said Robert Lancaster, a Durham resident who is an engineer.

Each discussion group sat around a map of the rail system and used it as a big doodling pad. Leaning over the table with a fat green marker, Lancaster wrote out his ideas for artwork on rail station walls.

The Hayti community center, a converted church, had been the center of racial and political dramas over the past century. Urban renewal and the Durham Freeway project flattened hundreds of African-American businesses and virtually wiped out the Hayti community more than three decades ago, but the spirit of Hayti was palpable in the meeting room Thursday night.

"We marched downtown from this church," said William V. Harris, 61, who led the local NAACP youth chapter during the civil rights struggles of the 1960s. "My office was in this church. The meetings that I held every day were in this church."

The Triangle's triangle

The two dozen people at the Hayti meeting were united in their support of themes tied to the area's African-American heritage, and also in their fascination with the symbol of the triangle. What kind of triangle do we like, and how should we use it?

Josh Parker, 20, a Durham college student and a research analyst for Blue Devil Ventures, a downtown redevelopment company, liked a red-blue-and-yellow triangle logo promoted recently by political and business groups in the region. Other people liked it, too.

"Is that the triangle we've been seeing on TV?" asked L.E. Tuckett, a Durham Area Transit Authority board member. He drew one with his purple pen.

After Harris won applause for a ringing endorsement of diversity themes, Parker stood to expand on his ideas. The people around Parker's table had delved deep into geometric imagery in an attempt to relate the Triangle region to its key qualities and its place in the world.

"We thought of a circle or a globe as a worldly symbol, with a triangle inside it, and using words like opportunity and diversity and innovation, " Parker explained.

"We just wanted to make sure we get across how we keep re-creating ourselves in this area, based on the resources we have," he said.

"And how we attract people from all over the world."

HAVE YOUR SAY

The Triangle Transit Authority will hold three "Art in Transit" planning meetings this week for regional rail stations in Raleigh. Residents are invited to learn about station design plans and to help refine themes to be reflected in an "artistic ribbon" between the 16 stations.

A light supper will be served. Anyone wishing to attend is asked to call 485-7519.

- North Raleigh stations (Highwoods, New Hope Church Road, Spring Forest, to open 2011). Millbrook Exchange Community Center, 1905 Spring Forest Road, Raleigh. 5-8 p.m. Tuesday.

- West Raleigh, State Fairgrounds and N.C. State University stations. Jane McKimmon Center, Gorman Street at Western Boulevard. 5-8 p.m. Wednesday.

- Downtown Raleigh and Government Center stations. Raleigh Urban Design Center, 133 Fayetteville Street Mall, Fayetteville Street at Hargett Street, First Floor, Alexander Building. 5-8 p.m. Thursday.

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