Governor's Award for Environmental Excellence

The Department of Environmental Protection this week announced the 11 winners of the Governor’s Environmental Excellence Awards for 2004.

The Governor’s Awards Program began in 1996 to recognize businesses, local governments, environmental and community organizations that go above and beyond the call to protect and restore the environment.

The accumulated environmental accomplishments of the 295 winners of the Governor’s Award for Environmental Excellence from 1996 through the 2003 are truly remarkable. They saved: over 10 billion gallons of wastewater, 191 million tons of air emissions, 206 million tons of solid waste, 233 million kilowatt hours of electricity and over $1.2 billion in savings to their bottom line.

This year’s crop of winners is no exception. Take a look at what they have accomplished--

Meadville Area Water Authority:The Meadville Area Water Authority (MAWA) in Crawford County is a public-private partnership that provides water service and fire protection to a population of 16,000.

MAWA's water education program was designed to provide source water protection and conservation education to all of its customers by reaching out to all sixth grade students in its service area.

MAWA's educational efforts began in 1999. A system-wide leak survey from 2001 to 2003 showed a savings in pumping of 43.6 million gallons. MAWA's educational efforts for water conservation produced a savings of 22 million gallons.

St. Mary's Pressed Metals, Inc.: St. Mary's Pressed Metals (SMPM) has been manufacturing powdered metals components for over 30 years in Elk County. SMPM supplies parts to a very diverse group of industries, including medical, appliance, and transportation services.

Approximately six tons of metallic residual material is collected and disposed at the Onyx Landfill. The goal of St. Mary’s Pressed Metals' project, called "Acid Mine Drainage Reclamation," was to reduce the volume of sludge deposited at the Onyx Landfill by transforming it into a useful product.

The company explored the possibilities of reusing the residual sludge material as an alternative to disposing it at the landfill and developed a new hybrid material: Iron Calcium. The newly-developed Iron Calcium revealed very desirable properties, giving the new pressed metals industry a new alternative that may be used in various applications.

This new project will eliminate 2,000 tons of treated acid mine drainage material per year.

St. Mary’s also won a 1996 Governor’s Environmental Excellence Award.

Pfizer, Inc. : Pfizer, Inc. (Lititz) in Lancaster County is the manufacturing site for the Benylin, Benadryl, and Sudafed cough and cold products; Listerine brand oral care products; Lubriderm, Corn Huskers, Neosporin, and Polysporin skin care products; Dilantin; and Zyrtec D.

Pfizer funded the design, permitting and construction of the New Street Ecological Park in Lititz, which was later designated as the pilot for Pennsylvania's fledgling Conestoga River Watershed Nutrient Trading Project.

The New Street Ecological Park is a public park in the Borough of Lititz, through which the Santo Domingo Creek flows. The project represents a breakthrough on several fronts in Pennsylvania's ongoing efforts to reduce sediment and nutrient pollution being carried downstream to the Chesapeake Bay: a partnership among private and public entities, a pilot project for nutrient trading, and an example of underemployed methods to reduce sediment and nutrient pollution in Piedmont waterways.

The New Street Ecological Park restoration represents an important step in improving water quality, not only in the Lititz Run Watershed, but also in the receiving waters of the Conestoga River, the Susquehanna River, and the Chesapeake Bay.

Pfizer won a 2003 Governor’s Environmental Excellence Award

Harley-Davidson Motor Company Operations, Inc.: The Harley-Davidson Motor Company, York Vehicle Operations is the manufacturing and assembly site for Touring, Softail, and limited edition motorcycles, and a variety of current and non-current replacement parts.

Harley-Davidson's Keystone Project was designed to enable the York Vehicle Operations facility to meet the increased motorcycle production capacity requirements, to increase product quality, to improve production processes, to reduce material handling activities, and to reduce costs. The project consisted of designing and constructing a focused factory to improve asset utilization, as well as simplify and streamline the operations while increasing capacity for the plant.

Harley-Davidson's new facility has an "Energy Star" rated roof, which reduced peak cooling by 10 percent, resulting in an annual cost savings of $102,842. The company installed waterless urinals, saving 100,000 gal/year of water and implemented the "Best Available Technology" for their paint operations to reduce Volatile Organic Compounds by 77 percent and Hazardous Air Pollutants by 95 percent.

Harley-Davidson also made use of a brownfield property.

Harley-Davidson won a 2002 Governor’s Environmental Excellence Award

Foamex, LP: The Foamex plant, located in Corry, Erie County, is a manufacturer of flexible polyurethane foam used for the bedding and carpet underlay industries.

Methylene chloride has been widely used in the foam industry as an auxiliary blowing agent (ABA) in the manufacturing of flexible polyurethane. Foamex's overall pollution prevention strategy over the last four years has been to reduce, and ultimately eliminate, the use of methylene chloride as an ABA.

In April 2004 the Foamex Corry plant succeeded in totally eliminating the use of methylene chloride as an ABA. This milestone is a voluntary commitment by Foamex management to preserve and protect the Corry community and the surrounding environment.

Westmoreland Conservation District: The Westmoreland County Conservation District was established in 1949 when local farmers seeking help to conserve their soil and water resources, approached the Westmoreland County commissioners.

Several years ago, the District launched a fundraising campaign to fund its most ambitious outreach program: the Center for Conservation Education, which was completed in 2004.

The Center for Conservation Education was designed and built to be a teaching tool and showcase of effective examples of conservation in action. The Westmoreland Conservation District expects to reach approximately 14,000 upper-age students and area adults per year with the information, tools, and motivation they need to incorporate good conservation practices into their daily lives.

In a recent audit of all buildings maintained by Westmoreland County, the Center for Conservation Education ranked number one in energy efficiency. Costs to run the air conditioning, computer systems, heating, and lighting throughout the 7,600-square-foot center average just $328 per month.

Reliant Seward, LLC: The Reliant Energy Seward Project in Indiana County combined several environmental opportunities:remediation of an 80-year-old waste coal, brownfield site; the retirement of a 1921-vintage coal-fired power plant; and the construction of a new, advanced clean-coal technology plant that reduces air emissions, reduces water discharges, and eliminates waste coal piles in a 50-mile radius.

The project began in 2000 to remediate this site and, at the same time, construct the new facility. This remediation was one of the largest brownfield site remediations in the U. S..

During the project, the plant retained its staff, maintaining 60 jobs. An additional 200 jobs were created in fuel handling and trucking. $30 million will be reintroduced every year to the local community in wages, taxes, and purchased services as a result of the project.

The Station also used the latest clean-coal technologies to especially address stringent air emission limits. These include selective non-catalytic reduction systems of aqueous ammonia to help reduce nitrogen oxide emissions, fabric filters for particulate matter, and the first U. S. application of flash dry absorber technology to control sulfur dioxide emissions.

Philadelphia Million Solar Roofs Partnership: The Philadelphia Million Solar Roofs Community Partnership (PMRS), administered by the Energy Coordinating Agency of Philadelphia, is a collaborative of business, non-profits, and individuals working together to promote solar energy applications on both homes and commercial buildings.

The Norris Square Solar Project is the first photovoltaic (PV) installation to benefit the residents of affordable housing in Philadelphia, and the largest PV installation in the City of Philadelphia to date. The project involved the installation of eight 1.2 kilowatt PV systems on eight adjacent previously-constructed row homes at 128 - 142 Norris Street.

The project's PV installations are expected to lower each resident's electric bill from 15 to 25 percent. The goal of the project is to make affordable housing even more so by reducing low-income residents' bills.

It is expected the electricity generated by these Photovoltaic systems will result in the following reductions in pollutants: carbon dioxide, 25,500 lbs; carbon oxide, 2.2 lbs; sulfur dioxide, 175 lbs; nitrogen oxide, 50 lbs; volatile organic compounds, 0.35 lbs; and particulate matter 10, 2.2 lbs.

Pennsylvania Army National Guard Combined Support Maintenance Shop East: The Pennsylvania Army National Guard Combined Support Maintenance Shop East (CSMS) facility, located in Lebanon County, replaced its solvent-borne coating with the new water dispersible Chemical Agent Resistant Coatings (CARC) for routine surface coating operations.

Since the water dispersible CARC emits virtually no hazardous air pollutants and the volatile organic compounds (VOC) content is lower than the standard solvent-based CARC used throughout the Army (1.8 pounds per gallon compared to 35 pounds per gallon), emissions of these pollutants have been dramatically reduced.

By changing the process to water dispersible CARC, the facility will reduce VOC emissions by 2.6 tons in the first year and twenty fewer pounds of lead and chromate will be emitted. A similar reduction will be seen in particulate emissions, since silicates have been removed from the formulation as well. The durability of the paint is also ten times greater than the previous paint which means an even greater pollution prevention return in future years because equipment will not be re-painted as frequently.

Having developed a process to incorporate water dispersible CARC into production, the CSMS has become the model facility throughout the Army National Guard. The state area commands of Arizona, Oklahoma, and Rhode Island are using similar systems and have incorporated procedures developed by the Pennsylvania CSMS staff.

Wells Creek Watershed Association: The Wells Creek Watershed Association (WCWA) was formed in 1999 in order to restore a trout fishery to Wells Creek, Somerset County.

The deep mine discharges, which previously destroyed the middle third of Wells Creek, have been cleaned up by two passive treatment systems. As a result, the trout in the Stonycreek River may now swim all the way up the stream to its headwaters. The WCWA was able to stock over 600 trout in the stream last May.

Carnegie Mellon University: As part of a larger Green Practices effort, Carnegie Mellon has adopted a goal to achieve a LEED Silver rating for all new construction. The New House residence hall is the first building at the university to pursue LEED Certification. In September 2003, New House -- a 72,000 square feet, 256-bed residence hall -- received notification that it had achieved a LEED Silver rating.

New House is the first university residence hall in the nation to achieve such rating. There are more buildings at various stages of construction on campus, each headed for LEED Certification.

As with green buildings, the benefits to the user, the owner, and the environment are numerous. Students experience enhanced living and learning environments through natural lighting, water and energy consumption, and optimum indoor air quality. The institution benefits from lower energy costs. The environment benefits from the use of recycled materials, reduced construction waste, and lower energy demands for the life of the buildings.

Faculty and students in the School of Architecture have provided building modeling services to CMU's Facilities Management Services toward the design and construction of these green buildings. This provides for real world classroom opportunities for architecture and engineering students.

Carnegie Mellon won a 2001 Governor’s Environmental Excellence Award

To see the accomplishments of the previous winners of the Governor’s Award for Environmental Excellence, and to get some ideas of your own, visit these links:

2004 Winners 2003 Winners 2002 Winners 2001 Winners 2000 Winners

1999 Winners 1998 Winners 1997 Winners 1996 Winners

You can also be inspired by the good work of the winners of the Governor’s Watershed Stewardship Awards for 2002 and 2001.

3/18/2005