Meadows Center For Water, Environment Named Winner Of TCEQ A Texas Environmental Excellence Award

By, Terra Rivers, Managing Editor

On March 1, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality announced the winners of the Texas Environmental Excellence Awards for 2019.

This year’s winners include BAE Systems, Candace Printz, City of Lago Vista, EcoRise, Huntsman Petrochemical, LLC, Linda Dunn, Texas 4-H Youth Development, Texas A&M University Texas AgrilLife Research, Texas Native Seeds Program and Meadows Center for Water and Environment at Texas State University.

The Meadows Center has been named the winner of the Civic/Community Category; the meadows center and its Texas Stream Team has spent the last 30 years working to inspire research and innovation that ensures clean water for future generation, according to TCEQ.

“The Texas Stream Team works to fight pollution in the 191,000 miles of rivers and streams across the state, training volunteers to collect surface water quality data and assess it for issues,” TCEQ said on their website. “These dedicated citizen scientists, consisting of students, educators, community members, professionals, and private sector partners, serve as an early warning system for water pollution. The program not only records critically important data that is used to keep the waterways healthy, but each citizen serves as a vocal ambassador for their water body. The statewide network of volunteers works to identify areas of concern, reduce pollution, and provide agencies with the information they need to improve and conserve our waterways.”

In 2018, volunteers spent almost 6,000 hours sampling water, traveling 61,305 miles to over 340 different monitoring sites across Texas, according to TCEQ.

“This commitment not only highlights how well the program operates, but it shows how dedicated these citizens are to protecting our state’s most precious resource,” TCEQ said.

The Texas Environmental Excellence Awards is an annual awards program that honors achievements in environmental preservation and protection.

There are ten diverse award categories that provide citizens, communities, businesses, and organizations an opportunity to obtain the state’s highest environmental honor and be recognized for their environmental projects. 

All finalists will be honored and celebrated at a banquet on May 15, 2019; the banquet takes place on the last day of the Environmental Trade Fair and Conference.