PA Environment Digest

The Pennsylvania Environmental Council this week announced it will award the prestigious Curtin Winsor Award to Philadelphia Water Department Commissioner Howard Neukrug.

The award will be presented at PEC’s 41st Annual Philadelphia Dinner on June 8 at the Crystal Tea Room in Center City Philadelphia.

Named for the PEC’s founder and longtime President, the Winsor Award honors distinguished environmental leaders for their lifetime achievement. Past recipients include Dr. Ruth Patrick, former Congressman Bob Borski, Joseph Manko, Joanne Denworth, Eleanor Morris, Jane Pepper and Blaine Bonham.

Neukrug is receiving the honor for his visionary determination to protect Philadelphia’s watersheds and for advancing an innovative green infrastructure plan, Green City Clean Waters, to address the City’s combined sewer overflow problem.

“Cities across the nation are now looking at Philadelphia as the preeminent model for managing stormwater through green infrastructure,” said Paul King, President and CEO of PEC. “This approach will benefit Philadelphians by protecting their drinking water, making rivers and streams more attractive recreation amenities, and supporting economic growth.”

As the Water Commissioner, Neukrug is responsible for providing integrated drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater services to the City of Philadelphia.

He was the founder of the Philadelphia Office of Watersheds in 1999 and the creator of its Green City, Clean Waters Program, a $2 billion, 25-year plan that aims to utilize rainwater as a resource by recycling, re-using, and recharging long neglected groundwater supplies rather than piping it away from our communities into the city’s over-burdened sewers and distressed rivers and streams.

“PEC has had the pleasure of working with Howard for more than a decade through PWD’s Watershed Partnership programs,” said Patrick Starr, Senior Vice President of PEC. “I’m so pleased to recognize his leadership in an effort that will transform our City in to the ‘Green Countrie Town’ that William Penn envisioned.”

Share this: