2000 Governor's Environmental and Economic Leadership Awards

Awards were presented in the following categories:

• Environmental Economic Partnerships
• Environmental Management
• Innovation
• Environmental Restoration and Rehabilitation

Governor's Award Press Release (Adobe PDF, 99 KB)

I: Environmental Economic Partnerships

Collaborative for High Performance Schools (CHPS)
The Collaborative’s vision is to create a new, improved generation of energy-efficient, high performance school buildings that will provide better learning environments. Formed at the suggestion of Commissioner Robert Pernell of the California Energy Commission this program began with a simple idea--initiate a collaborative effort, involving all energy program service providers and related state agencies, to address the energy and environmental needs of the K-12 schools market. Commissioner Pernell turned to program managers from Pacific Gas and Electric, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas and Electric Companies to initiate the collaboration. Today, membership includes four state agencies, six energy utilities, and two nonprofit organizations. Achieving the collaboration’s goals will lead to improved student performance, cost-effectiveness and indoor air quality. The benefits of this group’s effort are expected to extend to schools across the entire nation.

The Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers Watershed Council
Under the leadership of its president and founder, Dorothy Green, the Council has become a key force in leading its stakeholders in the direction of environmentally sound river restoration and management. Its goal is to improve the beneficial uses of the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers, a goal that will also help to reduce and clean up urban runoff, conserve wildlife habitat, and develop riverside trails and river parkways.

The Council has brought together a wide and diverse range of key and influential stakeholders in the two watersheds. And while the task of protecting these watersheds sounds straightforward, its stakeholders do not always have common goals and objectives with respect to river use and management; in some cases stakeholders can be considered natural adversaries. Through the efforts of the Council, these diverse interests now share a common bond and unified direction.

South Orange County Permit Consolidation Zone
One important goal of the Davis administration is to make government more ‘user friendly.’ The South Orange County Permit Consolidation Zone's 35 participating agencies formed an extraordinary partnership to do just that. Working together, the member agencies developed a single Environmental Protection Permit Screening Form (EPPSF) that met all information gathering needs--state and local--and a process to screen permit applicants at public counters to identify projects that need environmental permits. Applicants can now receive assistance from a broad range of government offices through this one form.

A messenger collects the forms and delivers them to the South Orange County Permit Assistance Center where they are scanned and emailed to environmental and regulatory agencies for their review. If needed, the appropriate agencies then provide assistance to applicants to ensure their projects comply with existing laws and regulations. The EPPSF streamlines approvals, reduces paperwork and uses technology to enable agencies to share information. Along the way, this innovative procedure also encourages communities to work together for public safety, environmental protection and economic development.

II. Environmental Management

Riverside County Integrated Project (RCIP)
Recognizing the need for a new and different approach to managing growth, the Riverside County Integrated Project combined three often independent, yet related, planning elements vital to the future of Riverside County and Southern California: habitat conservation, transportation, and land use. The project, an unprecedented partnership between local governments, environmentalists, business and trade organizations, and the County, is guided by three overarching principles: (1) the public, along with its stakeholders, must drive it; (2) everyone from private landowners to stakeholders to state and federal governments must have financial responsibility to ensure its completion and implementation; and (3) the interdependence of the three elements is necessary for the successful implementation of the plan. RCIP has set forth an aggressive three-year deadline for the project’s completion. It is being closely watched nationwide by federal agencies and other counties and municipalities as a new approach to managing growth and balancing the needs of development and the environment.

City of Palm Desert Environmental Stewardship Program
The City of Palm Desert has made a firm commitment to environmental values and protection, and exemplifies the integration of environmental management and stewardship in all levels of municipal governance. Their program includes: acquiring open space lands; establishing a drought tolerant landscaping program and other water conservation measures; establishing community gardens; participating in the development of fuel cells; requiring compressed natural gas-fueled trash trucks and buses; participating actively in the Coachella Valley Mountains Conservancy; and donating land to the Bureau of Land Management for the site of the Santa Rosa Mountains National Scenic Area Visitors Center (and assisting with maintenance of the site.)

III. Innovation

Container Recycling Alliance--Optical Sort of Recycled Glass
Container Recycling Alliance (CRA) is one of three processors of recycled glass containers in California, cleaning the recycled glass of contaminants and producing furnace-ready ‘cullet’ (raw slabs of glass) for the bottling and fiberglass industry. In June 1999, CRA, in partnership with Ball-Foster Container Company, added a cutting-edge procedure to their facility in the City of Vernon. This new process uses an automated optical scanner that is able to pull contaminants such as ceramics, stone, porcelain and other debris off the sort line, and clean materials otherwise destined for the landfill.

The CRA facility is the first of its kind in California and fulfills two major goals: municipalities are able to divert more waste from landfills that was not destined for recycling because it was contaminated or broken, and glass manufacturers now have access to recycled glass that exceeds even their own standards for cleanliness. The result: natural resources are conserved, and landfill space is saved, a win-win situation economically and environmentally.

Nissan North America, Inc.--The Sentra CA
Nissan North America, Inc., in conjunction with its parent company, Nissan Motor Corporation, Ltd., has developed the world’s cleanest gasoline-fueled vehicle. Developed in 1999, the Sentra Clean Air (CA) achieves this significant goal by incorporating a set of environmentally beneficial features that include: (1) tailpipe emissions as clean as or cleaner than the surrounding air in metropolitan cities; (2) zero evaporative emissions which means the vehicle can prevent fuel vapors from escaping from the fuel systems even while standing still; and (3) sensors that enable the vehicle to detect minute changes in emissions to alert the driver when service is needed to keep the engine running in its cleanest possible state.

Because of its similarity to an unmodified Sentra--and its ability to be refueled like any other gasoline-powered vehicle--Nissan believes that the Sentra CA will have more widespread public acceptance than competing vehicles that are striving to achieve what is known as Partial Zero Emission. This market acceptance makes the innovative technology practical as well as beneficial.

IV: Environmental Restoration and Rehabilitation

Yolo Basin Foundation--Yolo Bypass Working Group
Now known as the Vic Fazio Yolo Wildlife Area, this 3,700-acre wildlife area was created and coordinated by the Yolo Basin Foundation (YBF) and is the largest wetlands restoration project west of the Florida Everglades. The Foundation has worked to find balanced solutions for expanding habitat opportunities while maintaining a viable agricultural economy and floodwater conveyance system in the Yolo Bypass, a former natural (now managed) floodplain used for controlling water levels in nearby Sacramento River during high-flow conditions.

The viability of the Bypass’s future ecological enhancement depends upon landowner and flood management agency willingness and participation. The YBF formed its Yolo Bypass Working Group, a model partnership of landowners, farmers, stakeholders, and governmental representatives to provide locally-driven stewardship of the Bypass. With the aid of a CALFED grant, the YBF and the Yolo Bypass Working Group are working on a draft Management Strategy report, to be completed this fall, that includes a range of alternatives for land use practices that would increase fish and wildlife.

Mr. Roger Boddaert--Project 2000
Project 2000 originated with one man’s dream to reforest Interstate Highway 15 near his hometown of Fallbrook. Roger Boddaert, a landscape architect sometimes known as “The Treeman of Fallbrook,” created Project 2000 by forming a partnership with the National Tree Trust, the California Department of Transportation’s Adopt-a-Highway Program, and the California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection (CDFF).

The project began several years ago with a small grant from the National Tree Trust and the willingness of CDFF to allow inmates at a conservation camp to plant 2,000 small seedlings of native oaks and sycamores. Today, because of the efforts of Project 2000, along with Roger and his volunteers, more than 3,000 new trees grace Fallbrook’s roads, school streets, and the economic core of the business area along Main Street. Roger’s hope is that other communities throughout the state will see this program as a means of bringing back a town’s sense of pride and its appreciation of the beauty of nature.

Sponsorship
The Richard and Rhoda Goldman Foundation has generously provided annual support for The Governor’s Environmental and Economic Leadership Award Program.

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