IECA names Environmental Achievement and Outstanding Professional of the Year awards

Denver — International Erosion Control Association Region One (IECA) named its 2015 winners for the Environmental Achievement and Outstanding Professional of the Year awards. The Bijou Area Erosion Control Project receives the Environmental Achievement Award and John McCullah is named the Outstanding Professional of the Year award recipient.

The Environmental Excellence Award is the IECA's premier award. It recognizes an outstanding stormwater and erosion and/or sediment control project, program or operation that demonstrates excellence in natural resource conservation and environmental protection. Recipients of this award show a highlevel of environmental benefit by clearly identifying the objectives, methods used, results obtained and details of the benefits to the environment. Accepting the award for the Bijou Area Erosion Control Project will be Stephen Peck, PE, PMP, CPSWQ, QSD.

The Bijou Area Erosion Control Project is a complex regional stormwater pumpandtreat system in a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) mapped flood zone. While the issues were complex, the system applied standard construction techniques in a series to provide efficient stormwater quality treatment and flood control in an effective and easily maintainable manner. To maximize the efficiency of the system, the project included a bypass stormwater double box culvert as a key component of the project. The box culvert conveys upper watershed runoff through the highly developed commercial core, and directly into Lake Tahoe, without contributions from the commercial and highway areas (runoff with high constituent loading). This approach allowed for more effective treatment of the commercial area runoff (significantly less flow/volume), which enters the pumpandtreat system. The bypass culvert system further included the design and construction of a headwall in the shore zone of Lake Tahoe, a federally protected water body.

John McCullah is named the winner of the Outstanding Professional of the Year. This award recognizes an IECA member as an individual or organization that demonstrates excellence in their work in the industry and is viewed by his IECA peers as an industry leader through significant engagement with the IECA.

McCullah has been in the industry for more than 30 years and during that time he has become a renowned industry expert whose influence spans the globe. In addition to working across the continental United States, McCullah has completed projects in exotic and dramatically different locations such as Malaysia and New Zealand. He is a teacher, a scholar, an activist and a professional; and in each of these roles he has made significant positive impacts on the industry in a number of ways over the years.

These awards are selected on criteria that reflect quality, skill and environmental benefits. Winners were selected from responses to a “Call for Entries” process. Both winners will be recognized at IECA’s annual conference and expo, Environmental Connection 2016 in San Antonio, Texas on February 17.