Bluegrass Tomorrow Presents Greensource with Vision Award for Green/Sustainability

November 14, 2013By 0 comment

Award Photo

Posted Monday, November 4, 2013 on KyForward.com

The annual Bluegrass Tomorrow’s Vision Awards Breakfast included more than sticky buns on the menu. Awards were presented to Don Robinson, Ed Burtner, the Kentucky River Thorobred, Knox van Nagell, Bluegrass Greensource, Judy Clabes, the National Park Service’s Rivers Trails Conservation Assistance Program, Kyle Lake and Rebecca Barnes.

Robinson is owner of Winter Quarter Farm and is best known for breeding multiple Eclipse Award winner Zenyatta, the 2010 Horse of the Year. He won the 2013 Josephine Abercrombie Vision Award for his leadership as chairman of the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government Planning Commission which made the motion for a change of minimum lot acreage from 10 to 40 acres in agricultural areas.

Ed Burtner is the mayor of Winchester. He has been a major advocate for Bluegrass Station and the Bluegrass Army Depot and is active in many regional organizations and projects He received the Bluegrass Legacy Vision Award.

Other awards were presented for outstanding service to Bluegrass Tomorrow and the 18 surrounding counties to the Kentucky River Thorobred, a Kentucky State University floating laboratory; Knox van Nagell of the Fayette Alliance; Bluegrass Greensource; and a conservation program run by the National Park Service.

The special Robert Clay Award was also presented to Judy Clabes, publisher and editor of KYForward.com, as Bluegrass Tomorrow’s “most valuable” board member and the one who has done the most to improve the organization over the last year.

Passionate about the preservation and protection of precious Bluegrass soils and the equine/agricultural industry, Robinson is a director and past president of the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association, the Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners & Breeders Association, and the Fayette County Farm Bureau. He is currently chairman of the Fayette Alliance.

Burtner has been a board member of Bluegrass Tomorrow and the Bluegrass Area Development District. He has been very active in the United Way and the regional Public Policy Group facilitated by Commerce Lexington which advocates for many regional issues including education, drug abuse, the Kentucky River, the water supply and others.

KSU’s Kentucky River Thorobred floating laboratory is a unique 52-foot pontoon boat used for research on river ecology and environment, and was honored with the Education Vision Award.

Bluegrass Greensource (formerly PRIDE) won the Green/Sustainability Vision Award for its excellent and continued work in environmental education and sustainability.

Van Nagell of the Fayette Alliance was honored with the Equine/Agriculture Vision Award for her tireless work in protecting precious Bluegrass soils and advocacy on more than 65 major land use policies.

Russell Clark and Alison Bullock of National Park Service’s Rivers Trails Conservation Assistance Program won the Conservation/Preservation Vision Award for their work with the Kentucky River Water Trail Alliance and the Bluegrass Bike Hike Horseback Trails Alliance, important initiatives of Bluegrass Tomorrow.

Kyle Lake of Prosper Productions and Rebecca Barnes of Northwestern Mutual won Young Professionals Vision Awards for their tireless work with young professional organizations and projects in the region and promoting the Bluegrass Tomorrow philosophy of “developing an environment in the region where creative talent, young professionals, diversity and entrepreneurship will thrive.”

From Bluegrass Tomorrow

 

 

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Ky. American Water, Greensource among winners of state environmental awards

September 20, 2013By 0 comment

The Kentucky Department for Environmental Protection honored the six recipients of its 2013 Environmental Excellence Awards during an awards luncheon at the Governor’s Conference on Energy and the Environment at the Lexington Convention Center in Lexington. Three are from Lexington, two from Louisville and one from Bowling Green.

The recipients are:

 

KY EXCEL Champion Award: Kentucky American Water – Lexington
Kentucky American Water was the first utility to join KY EXCEL as a master member and has been involved in numerous environmental projects, such as environmental education, Trout in the Classroom, Reforest the Bluegrass, rain gardens, stream bank restorations, Adopt-a-Highway, recycling, stormwater mitigation and more.

 

Community Environmental Luminary Award: Bluegrass Greensource – Lexington
The organization provides environmental outreach to 18 counties, and organized 3,000 environmental presentations with approximately 80,000 student interactions. Outreach educators mentored more than 2,500 school administrators and teachers, taking them to coal mines and solar farms to help them teach about energy. They have demonstrated testing water quality of streams; conducted waste analyses, saving a school system $50,000 in waste hauling costs; and assisted in removing 150,000 bags of trash from roads and streams.

 

Resource Caretaker Award: University of Louisville – Louisville
The university created a strategic plan to focus on creative and responsible stewardship. This commitment led to reclaiming more than 200 acres in grayfield/brownfield areas around the Belknap Campus, resulting in being awarded the national Phoenix Award for brownfield reclamation. The university reduced energy consumption by $4.6 million annually, constructed or renovated six major capital projects at the LEED Gold or Silver levels and partnered with local food vendors and producers to utilize local food sources.

 

Environmental Pacesetter Award for an Individual/Organization: Chris Tyler – Lexington
As a member of the Kentucky Chapter of the United States Green Building Council, Chris Tyler has served as the Advocacy Chair, Green Schools Chair and board chair. His leadership in these roles demonstrated his effectiveness, commitment to and passion for the organization’s mission. During Chris’s chairmanship and leadership, the chapter was successful in establishing the first bipartisan Green Schools Caucus in Kentucky, providing the opportunity to educate legislators, school boards, PTA groups and others about the importance of green schools for children.

 

Environmental Pacesetter Award for a Small Business: Pull-A-Part – Louisville
Pull-A-Part has transformed what was once perceived as the junkyard into a sustainable recycling business. The company has made exceptional commitments to resource conservation, waste reduction and pollution prevention, working to set the standard of excellence in handling and recycling of end-of-life vehicles. To protect the environment, Pull-A-Part utilizes proper materials’ management, minimizing solid waste by removing and recycling all fluids and other potential contaminants, maximizing reuse of all possible parts and materials and maximizing recycling of the rest of the vehicle to decrease the residue disposed of by the automobile shredder.

 

Environmental Pacesetter Award for a Medium to Large Business: SCA Americas – Bowling Green
SCA Americas-Bowling Green has awarded environmental education grants to schools and implemented a zero landfill program, which diverted more than 7 million pounds of waste materials from local landfills in 2012. SCA team members participated in several community events, such as county parks trash pick-up days, tree plantings and partnering with Western Kentucky University on providing more than 1,000 sustainable tailgating kits at a football game.

 

From Kentucky Department for Environmental Protection

This article appeared in KY Forward on September 19, 2013.

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