GRA Kevin J. Neese Award Presented to the Orange County Water District
by James Strandberg, GRA President

OCWD, a special district formed by the State of California in 1933 to manage and protect the Orange County groundwater basin, was honored for its Groundwater Replenishment System (GRS), a new water purification plant that became operational last January. The new facility replaces the world famous Water Factory 21 and produces 70 MGD of near-distilled-quality water each day. The GRS takes already treated sewage that is normally discharged into the ocean, purifies it through a three step process, and then conveys the water to mix with groundwater supplies. The three treatment processes used are: microfiltration, reverse osmosis, and ultraviolet light with hydrogen peroxide. The facility provides enough water for 500,000 residents annually at 265,000 cubic meters per day and has the ability to expand to accommodate future growth and demand. OCWD provides approximately two-thirds of Orange County’s water supply. This varies year to year depending on groundwater supply availability.

OCWD remains an international leader in groundwater management and water reuse, has won multiple awards, including the distinguished Stockholm Industry Water Award, and is helping local communities, including Los Angeles, to create their own version of the GRS. A number of conference attendees thoroughly enjoyed a field trip of the massive plant and groundwater recharge facilities as part of GRA’s Annual Meeting. In his acceptance speech, Mr. Sheldon praised the work of OCWD technical and managerial staff, and credited his fellow Directors in making the GRS a reality.

GRA 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award Presented to Dr. Perry L. McCarty
by Vicki Kretsinger Grabert

GRA’s Lifetime Achievement Award is presented to individuals for their exemplary contributions to the groundwater industry and for contributions that have been in the spirit of GRA’s mission and organization objectives, including the management, protection and improvement of groundwater. These individuals are pioneers in their fields of expertise.

For more than 40 years, McCarty has devoted his life to extraordinary contributions to groundwater science, research, protection and improvement of water quality, education, and international awareness of the importance of groundwater. He received his M.S. and Sc.D. in sanitary engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1959 and was awarded an Honorary Engineering Doctorate from the Colorado School of Mines in 1992. He joined Stanford in 1962 to develop the Environmental Engineering and Science Program, and Chaired the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering from 1980 to 1985.

Legacy of Innovation and Contributions to Environmental Engineering and Science

His research interests and enthusiasm for problem solving reside at the interface of all aspects of water resources and cover a tremendous breadth of issues with social relevance. From early years to the present, his research includes aerobic and anaerobic biological processes for control of environmental contaminants (including nitrogen removal), advanced wastewater treatment processes, wastewater reuse, contaminant fate and transport, and groundwater remediation (including in-situ biodegradation of chlorinated solvents and other hazardous chemicals).

His combined knowledge of physical, chemical, biological, and microbiological processes and engineering solutions for water treatment laid the groundwork for regulatory confidence in worldwide technological development of surfacewater, groundwater, and wastewater treatment technologies. His efforts have been instrumental in building the necessary scientific foundation for water recycling and the use of recycled water in California, the Nation, and the world.

McCarty has enormously influenced research that focuses on the importance and understanding of contaminant fate and transport in soil and groundwater, and groundwater remediation methods.

He was instrumental in developing a focus on groundwater research at Stanford in the early 1970s; this was one of the Nation’s first groundwater research programs.

McCarty led early work on the Palo Alto Baylands project to research the creation of a saltwater intrusion barrier to protect the aquifer used to supply drinking water to the City of Palo Alto. The project’s goal was to create a saltwater intrusion barrier by injecting clean, recycled water from the Palo Alto Water Quality Control Plant.

McCarty has commented that reverse osmosis technology was considered just a “laboratory curiosity in the early 1960s.” In October 1976, his work with the Orange County Water District (OCWD) led to the first program to inject treated wastewater into a potable supply aquifer from the District’s reverse osmosis plant (Water Factory 21), which blended the recycled water with deep well water to create a full-scale saltwater intrusion barrier. The project was a great success, and with OCWD’s new Groundwater Replenishment System, the legacy of this groundbreaking plant lives on.

During the early years of groundwater research at Stanford, McCarty and others collaborated with the University of Waterloo (including John Cherry, now Emeritus Professor at Waterloo) to conduct research at the Borden site in Canada. The experience gained through collaborative work at the Borden site brought new insights to the Stanford researchers on field techniques. Subsequent field experimentation led to path-breaking discoveries and new methods, including:

• The identification of organic chemical biological degradation and sorption mechanisms occurring in the subsurface;
• The fate and transport of hazardous and trace chemicals;
• The development of new monitoring and field techniques, and
• Solutions for surface water, groundwater, and soil quality improvement.

Volunteerism

McCarty has served on numerous National Academy of Sciences committees and boards, particularly the National Research Council (NRC). His work on the NRC Committee on Intrinsic Remediation led to water quality improvement in surface and groundwater through in-situ or bioremediation methods; the Committee’s work culminated in the NRC report Natural Attenuation for Groundwater Remediation. McCarty has been an invited guest lecturer at universities worldwide. He holds eight patents, has authored or co-authored eight books, including the textbooks Chemistry for Environmental Engineering and Science and Environmental Biotechnology - Principles and Applications, and has over 300 publications.

Lifelong Educator of Students and Others

McCarty has been an educator at Stanford since 1962 and is known for his ability to attract and mentor outstanding doctoral students. He has had more than 40 Doctoral students and also sat on the Committees for about 50 additional Doctoral students.

He became involved in communicating science in China in the 1970s, which led to his appointment as Chair Professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China (2004-2007). About 15 years ago, he led a group of prominent engineers and scientists who traveled for three years to developing nations to communicate the importance of protecting groundwater resources from contamination.

Worldwide Honors and Awards

His previous honors and awards includethe John and Alice Tyler Prize for EnvironmentalAchievement in 1992 and the Athalie Richardson Irvine Clarke Prizefor Outstanding Achievements in WaterScience and Technology in 1997. In 2007, McCarty received the Stockholm WaterPrize, a global award presented annuallyby the Stockholm Water Foundation to anindividual, organization or institution for outstanding water-related activities.

Sustaining the Vision

Forty-six years after developing Stanford’s multidisciplinary Environmental Scienceand Engineering Program, he continues, as an Emeritus Professor, to promote contributions at the interface between disciplines.The focus of his research has shifted from solutions having more direct and economic human impact to increased efforts towards the protection of natural systems.