The Nevada Division of Environmental Protection announces that Kevin Piper and the Middle Carson River Coordinated Resources Management Group (CRMP) have been selected to receive the Wendell McCurry Excellence in Water Quality Award. This award was established to honor the memory of Wendell McCurry who passed in January 2000. During his 32-year tenure with the State of Nevada, Mr. McCurry had tremendous foresight and vision in the field of water pollution control and was a strong advocate of clean water for Nevada.

     The award was established to recognize those individuals, firms, organizations and governmental entities that have made significant contributions to improving the quality of Nevada’s water resources. Mr. Piper and several members of the Middle Carson River CRMP were at hand on July 27th, when Allen Biaggi, NDEP Administrator, presented this distinguished award at the Carson City office.

     The CRMP group, under Mr. Piper’s leadership as Watershed Coordinator, has completed a number of bank stabilization projects near Dayton, NV. The strength of the CRMP group stems from the property owners’ ability to work together in order to get “on the ground” projects completed. The property owners have demonstrated a willingness to “work with the river” and consider new ideas. The CRMP group promotes the use of bioengineering techniques for erosion control. Bioengineering utilizes vegetation in addition to “hard” structures such as rip-rap to mitigate severely eroding riverbanks, reduce sediment concentrations and restore wildlife habitat.

     As part of the Clean Water Action Plan, Mr. Piper (in cooperation with R.O. Anderson Engineering, Inc.) is in the process of implementing a long-term monitoring program at the project sites to evaluate BMP effectiveness and determine if the bioengineered sites are functioning as designed.