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Five finalists for the 2013 Arkansas Environmental Stewardship Award have been selected, with the winner to be announced later this month as part of Earth Week activities at the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ).
Dubbed the “ENVY Award,” the annual presentation was established in 2005 by the ADEQ to recognize a major contribution by an individual or organization for efforts to enhance and protect Arkansas’ natural resources. The finalists for this year’s award are:
· Beaver Water District, for development of an environmental education program for school children in the northwest Arkansas area focusing on the importance of maintaining a high level of water quality in the region’s principal public drinking water supply. The program has several different curriculum levels for students in grades K-12, and serves as an educational resource for 1,300 teachers and 6,000 students in the region every year. The district has also incorporated a Water Education Center into the design of its new administration building. The district is partnering with a wide range of government and private entities to offer the education program.
· The City of Fayetteville and the CH2M HILL engineering firm for significantly reducing operating expenses and the need to landfill biosolids generated by the city’s wastewater treatment plant, while also producing high-quality fertilizer products utilized by agricultural operations in northwest Arkansas. The system uses a combination of low energy solar and thermal drying systems to convert wet biosolids from the treatment plant into either Class B or Class A biosolids suitable for use as soil fertilizer. The fertilizers have proved so popular with local farmers that a waiting list had to be developed to deal with the demand. As a result of the biosolids drying program, the city is saving nearly $1 million in operating costs annually; has reduced the number of trips its trucks make to area landfills by 65 percent (with an accompanying reduction in gasoline costs and vehicle emissions); and expects to earn approximately $25,000 in 2013 from the sale of fertilizer.
· Goodwill Industries of Arkansas for its comprehensive statewide recycling program that has diverted millions of pounds of materials--including potentially hazardous electronic wastes--from landfills every year since 2008. Recently, Goodwill purchased a half-million square foot building in southwest Little Rock that had been vacant for years to allow for an increase in its recycling efforts. In addition to being a storage and staging area for recycled goods, the building will serve as a training area to assist disabled and special needs persons in finding jobs. Goodwill estimates that its recycling program has kept more than 43 million pounds of goods out of landfills in the state. Goodwill has increased the amount of electronic waste it processes by about 65 percent since starting its e-waste program in 2010, and it handled nearly 430,000 pounds of e-waste last year.
· Pratt and Whitney’s aircraft engine parts manufacturing facility at Springdale for a pollution prevention program designed to save electricity use and operating expenses, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The program includes such steps as upgrades to plant heating and cooling systems, use of light-emitting-diode light bulbs, and switching from graphite to carbon fiber plates in their heat-treatment process. The company’s efforts reduced energy consumption by eight percent in 2012, saving more than $60,000. Since 2009, Pratt and Whitney has seen a 25 percent decrease in greenhouse gas emissions, and also a 25 percent jump in sales. Pratt and Whitney has partnered with the University of Arkansas Industrial Clearinghouse, Southwestern Electric Power Company, and Mercer Technologies to develop the energy-saving program, and the Springdale facility is sharing program information with other Pratt and Whitney plants around the world.
· The Turner Bend Store and Turner Bend Outfitters, in recognition of owner Brad Wimberly’s 22 consecutive years of organizing cleanup operations along the Mulberry River and the surrounding area near his store and canoe rental facility near Ozark in Franklin County. The annual Mulberry cleanup involves an average of 130 volunteers who usually pick up a ton or more of trash each year along a 40-mile stretch of the river between the towns of Oark and Mulberry, as well as along highways, county roads, Forest Service roads, and various back roads in the Mulberry watershed. In addition, the store coordinates litter cleanups twice a year as part of the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department’s Adopt-a-Mile program on two miles of state highway; partners with the Cass Job Corps Center to pick up litter between Cass and Interstate 40; and offers reduced tickets to the annual Wakarusa Music Festival near Ozark to volunteers who agree to pick up litter along roads leading to the festival site.
All five finalists have been invited to attend the April 26, 2013, meeting of the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission, where this year’s ENVY Award winner will be announced. The meeting will begin at 9 a.m. in the ADEQ Headquarters Building, 5301 Northshore Drive, North Little Rock.
BOO on YOU. 
