Environmental Protection and Stewardship Awards

Environmental Excellence Awards

Environmental Excellence Awards are presented annually to TVA employees, teams, facilities, or organizations that have demonstrated exemplary performance in support of one of TVA’s six environmental principles: management commitment, environmental protection and stewardship, pollution prevention, environmental compliance, partnerships and public involvement, and innovation and technology transfer. One award is given in each performance category, and one category winner is also honored for outstanding performance by receiving the Environmental Excellence of the Year Award.

2002 Environmental Excellence of the Year Award

This award is presented to the category winner that best exemplifies TVA’s commitment to responsible environmental management and environmental leadership for the year. The honor includes a $1,000 donation in the team’s name to the environmental project or charity of its choice.

The 2002 award went to the River Forecast/Hydrothermal Team, led by Randy Kerr and Kathy Lindquist, which won in the Environmental Protection and Stewardship category. This multi-organizational, highly integrated team managed the river system while coping with unusually difficult drought conditions and critical peak power demands over the past several years. Conditions required the development of alternative operating schedules to minimize the need for deratings at TVA’s fossil and nuclear plants, while ensuring sufficient flows to maintain adequate dissolved oxygen levels below TVA dams.

The dedicated effort of this team and their colleagues in the Fossil and Nuclear organizations ensured that TVA’s fossil and nuclear units operated within their environmental limits. The team exemplifies the management of competing demands on the river system while optimizing the benefits to stakeholders.

Go to 2002 TVA Environmental Awards to see photographs, a list of the winners in all six categories, and the criteria for each award.

2003 Environmental Excellence of the Year Award

The 2003 award went to employees at Allen Fossil Plant, who won in the Environmental Compliance category.

Allen Fossil Plant employees’ dedication and teamwork resulted in a 90 percent reduction in NOx plant emissions from Units 1-3, allowing TVA to meet its NOx business plan goals, creating a NOx early reduction credit worth $20 million, and allowing TVA to more fully understand the emission reduction limits of SCR operations. This work demonstrates a strong commitment to operating with a goal of continuous improvement.

Go to 2003 TVA Environmental Awards to see photographs, a list of the winners in all six categories, and the criteria for each award.

Regional and National Environmental Awards

No good turn goes unnoticed. Although environmental protection and stewardship is an ongoing responsibility, TVA takes pride in the fact that its efforts to protect the environment have earned recognition from various agencies and groups.

2002 Awards

• TVA’s Chickamauga-Nickajack Watershed Team earned the 2002 Outstanding Conservation Partner Award from the Hamilton County, Tennessee, Soil Conservation District. The award recognized the Watershed Team’s exceptional support of sound conservation practices that benefit the community and area agricultural interests.
  
• John Jenkinson, an Aquatic Biology Specialist in TVA Resource Stewardship, was presented with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Nashville District "Commander’s Coin" recognizing significant achievements in public service. Jenkinson was honored for providing exemplary assistance to the Nashville District regarding native mussel species and Endangered Species Act consultation.
  
• Kim Pilarski, a TVA Resource Stewardship Wetland Biologist, earned the Alabama Waterfowl Association Wetland Stewardship Award for her efforts to build partnerships between TVA and the local community on wetland-restoration projects in Jackson County, Alabama.
  
• Resource Stewardship Forester Jack Muncy received a 2002 Presidential Field Forester Award for his innovative methods and record of excellence in the practice of forest management. Muncy was one of only 10 foresters recognized nationally by professional peers for his talents and efforts in applying the art and science of forestry in the field. Muncy has worked as a professional forester for almost 30 years with TVA, and he served as TVA’s lead forester in providing emergency assistance for fighting wildfires in cooperation with the USDA Forest Service. He is certified by the Society of American Foresters and is a registered forester in both Georgia and North Carolina.

• Several TVA scientists and researchers earned Environmental Research Champion Awards from the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) for their efforts in environmental research and development. Here’s a list of the winners and their award-winning contributions:
• Bert Bock, Principal Scientist in TVA’s Public Power Institute (PPI), coordinated and managed an international multidisciplinary project studying global climate change.
• Roger Tanner, a Physical Chemist in Energy Research & Technology Applications (ER&TA), and Tom Burnett, a PPI Senior Specialist, took fine particulate matter monitoring to a new level with the innovative, timely application of new measurement techniques in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. They also worked on a wastewater project for power plants that use selective-catalytic-reduction systems.
• These ER&TA staff members conducted the Paradise Fossil Plant Fly Ash Pond Pilot Ammonia Removal Study: Senior Specialist Nick Taylor, leader of the project; Senior Environmental Technician Sam Benefield; Environmental Engineer Specialist Mike Browman; Aquatic Biologist Jennifer Moses; Senior Environmental Engineer Roy Quinn; Senior Environmental Technician Dave Thomas (now retired); and Don Wade, a Specialist in Environmental Policy and Planning. The project addressed a growing and significant environmental issue facing the electric utility industry: the potential release of ammonia to the aquatic environment from selective catalytic reduction for NOx control.
  
• Employees at TVA’s Paradise Fossil Plant in Kentucky were honored with a GE Betz Return On Environment Partnership Award. The Paradise team was recognized for its work correcting a problem involving total suspended solids in the plant’s bottom-ash ponds.
  
• Wildlife habitat programs at Colbert Fossil Plant and the Wilson Dam/Muscle Shoals Reservation were certified by the Wildlife Habitat Council. The certification recognizes TVA’s successful development of a wildlife management program and a continued long-term commitment to protect and enhance wildlife habitat. Receiving recognition were Willie Buchanan, Pickwick Watershed Team Manager; Damien Simbeck, Aquatic Biologist; Ken Kelley, Environmental Scientist in Energy Research & Technology Applications, and John Muse and Michael Gean, Colbert Environmental Administrators.

2003 Awards

• A team of TVA scientists and researchers earned the EPRI Environmental Research Champions Award for its efforts. The team, consisting of Bob Burbage, Dave Michaud, Larry Monroe, Ed Stephens, Manojit Sukul, and Tom Burnett, was recognized for its work on the SCR/mercury speciation sampling and evaluation project. The goal of the project was to evaluate the mercury co-benefits associated with the installation and operation of selective catalytic reduction (SCR) systems on coal-fired power plants. The team’s work at Paradise Fossil Plant and elsewhere has confirmed that, at least for some coals, a well-designed SCR system can convert elemental mercury into the oxidized form, which can them be removed in the downstream flue gas desulfurization system. Results of their research indicate that it may be possible to remove 80 to 90 percent of the mercury, depending on the coal. These co-benefit mercury reductions associated with the SCR technology were largely unknown prior to the work of this team.
  
• The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation presented awards to three TVA employees and a recent retiree in 2003:
• Gallatin Fossil Plant Environmental Program Administrator Bill Hunt and Environmental Policy and Strategy Manager Jack Brellenthin accepted a Civic Volunteer Award on behalf of their fellow workers in partnership with the plant’s Environmental Action Team. The award recognized seven years of involvement in community and school events to increase awareness of environmental issues through the plant’s Pollution Prevention: Everybody’s Job program.
• Bill Redmond, who recently retired as Manager of Resource Services in Resource Stewardship, received a Natural Heritage Conservation Award.
• John Jenkinson, Senior Mollusk Biologist in Resource Stewardship at Norris Reservoir, received an Aquatic Resource Preservation Award for educating the public about aquatic conservation. He coordinates federal, state, and local agency reviews of TVA activities as they relate to endangered and threatened aquatic species and aquatic biodiversity. Redmond was cited for his involvement in projects such as a natural-heritage database, protection of sensitive resources, endangered-species monitoring, and integrated environmental data review in proposed developments.
  
• The City of Huntsville, Alabama, proclaimed January 9, 2003, TVA Resource Stewardship Day to recognize TVA’s Resource Stewardship organization for building several partnerships with Huntsville and the city’s Operation Green Team. The TVA group provided support and funding for such city programs as Trash for Cash cleanup efforts at illegal dump sites, Huntsville City Schools Ecological Education, the Flint River Festival, various forestry and horticultural projects, and the city’s “Cigarette Butts Are Litter” campaign. The proclamation, presented to TVA by Huntsville Mayor Loretta Spencer, also acknowledges TVA’s environmental initiatives, including Green Power Switch, the Clean Boating Campaign, and the Clean Marina Initiative. Resource Stewardship Vice President Bridgette Ellis accepted the proclamation on behalf of TVA.
  
• TVA’s Little Tennessee Watershed Team received a 2003 Blount County Environmental Achievement Award. This annual award recognizes businesses, organizations, or individuals who make outstanding efforts to protect, preserve, and enhance the environment of Blount County, Tennessee. TVA was recognized for its collaborative efforts with the Little River Water Quality Forum, a partnership of 21 agencies and organizations, to improve and protect the Little River. TVA helped start the Forum eight years ago, and has offered assistance to numerous water quality improvement and protection projects.
  
• TVA Resource Stewardship Foresters Greg Broyles, Bob Cavender, and Jack Muncy earned the International Erosion Control Association’s Environmental Achievement Award of Distinction for 2003. The IECA’s Annual Awards of Environmental Excellence recognize excellence in natural resource conservation and protection through the application of erosion and sediment control practices or public education. The TVA foresters were honored for leading the team that developed one of the nation’s first comprehensive, holistic field assessments of reservoir-shoreline erosion and contributing factors. Muncy initiated the project in 1994, taking a unique approach to survey the 11,000 miles of shoreline around 34 TVA reservoirs in seven states. Instead of using a helicopter for an easy aerial survey, the TVA team floated the entire multistate reservoir system by boat to learn about resource conditions. By 1997, he and his Erosion Control Team had assessed 6,000 miles of shoreline. In 2001, TVA Watershed Teams tackled the remaining 5,000 miles, compiling the first complete picture of shoreline conditions. The assessment recorded the dominant type of vegetation and land use, the impacts to the vegetation, and the soil erosion rate on the shoreline of each reservoir. TVA is using the data to target limited resources toward minimizing erosion and managing the shoreline for the greatest public benefit. Since 1997, Watershed Teams have worked with local, state, and federal agencies, lake users’ associations, and other stakeholders to stabilize 250 critically eroding shoreline sites, covering about 72 kilometers (45 miles).