PG&E Corporation encourages and recognizes our employees who identify and promote new environmentally superior techniques and practices, and strive to achieve best practices and standards as identified by third parties.

Pacific Gas and Electric Company in 2002 presented the first Richard A. Clarke Environmental Leadership Award. Jeff Joy received the award for his outstanding leadership on environmental justice, pollution prevention and clean air vehicles. Among Joy’s many accomplishments were his efforts to minimize the impact of the Utility’s construction crews in the Bayview Hunters Point area and his initiative to convert Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s San Francisco diesel-fueled Utility trucks to compressed natural gas within five years.

Scrubgrass Generating, in Pennsylvania, was the 2002 recipient of NEG’s Joseph P. Kearney Award. Team members Jeff Campbell, Kevin Hoffman, Philip Jones, Jeff Melat, Mike Palmer and Neal Parker worked together on the construction of a raw water storage pond, which will supply water for the cooling towers and provide an alternative to drawing water directly from the Allegheny River. On an annual basis, this will reduce the plant’s wastewater by 20 million gallons, cut solid waste by 50 tons and reduce chemical use by 1,000 gallons.

Salem Harbor Station, in Massachusetts, received NEG’s Platinum Environmental Excellence Award. Together the employees have reduced the plant’s air emissions exceedances by 71 percent from 2000 through 2002, averaging a 46 percent reduction each year.

Awarded for the first time in 2002, NEG’s Environmental Leadership Award went to Ken Alton of the Wilder Hydro office. He led more than 100 facility and local volunteers in the largest tree-planting project ever in New Hampshire, planting a total of 17 acres of trees and shrubs to create vegetated buffer zones along ecologically sensitive areas of the Connecticut River. The creation of these zones will help to prevent erosion, reduce agricultural runoff and provide important wildlife habitat.