Outstanding Agency: City of Prineville.
ACWA’s 2017 Outstanding Agency Award was awarded to the City of Prineville and Eric Klann, Public Works Director, for completion of the Crooked River Wetland Complex. Prineville’s integrated approach to managing wastewater through beneficial reuse has grown to include the creation and restoration of wetlands, floodplains, riparian areas, and public interpretive paths truly exemplifies what we mean when we talk about creating the “Utility of the Future.”
For the past 8 years, Prineville has researched and developed this 120-acre aquatic ecosystem project as a means to improve and expand its wastewater treatment facilities for the next thirty years. This project will not only meet Prineville’s water quality requirements, it will also benefit the community through access to nature trails, interpretive viewing, educational opportunities, and an expansion of wildlife habitats and flood plain functions along the Crooked River. At a cost of about $7.7 million, the City now has a community and environmental asset. Had Prineville opted for a traditional “bricks and mortar” approach to meeting its water quality and capacity expansion objectives, the estimated cost would have been about $60.
ACWA’s 2017 Individual Special Recognition Award was awarded to Mark Yeager of the City of Albany for his long-term service, active leadership, and effectiveness on behalf of ACWA since its creation in 1987.
Yeager has worked tirelessly for over thirty years in a variety of ACWA leadership roles, including serving as ACWA’s Chair and long-time Board member, representing Albany and communities across the state to achieve sound water quality-related laws, policies, and regulatory permits that are feasible for communities to implement and achieve real environmental benefits.
In his various professional roles, he has always pursued feasible, defensible and cost-effective environmental improvements for the City and the community. His accomplishments at the City of Albany are many, most recently, a monumental, successful multi-year effort to establish a funded stormwater utility to serve Albany’s community of over 50,000. All the while, he has worked tirelessly in a variety of ACWA leadership roles, representing Albany and communities across the state to achieve sound water quality-related laws, policies, and regulatory permits that are feasible for communities to implement and achieve real environmental benefits.