The
recipient of the 2013 Pick and Gavel Award from AASG is Congresswoman Betty
McCollum of Minnesota.
The
presentation was made at the Pick and Gavel Banquet at the Cosmos Club in
Washignton DC, on March 12th.
Minnesota State Geologist Harvey Thorleifson said that in a
decade in Congress, she has emerged as an influential advocate for issues such
as safe drinking water.
"She
has worked closely with the National Ground Water Association, for
example to advance development of a national groundwater monitoring
network.
Betty
is a member of the House Interior appropriations subcommittee, and
she has gone to bat for us in very real ways in multiple years, with
significant results regarding StateMap and Data Preservation funding.
She also
has spoken up for geologic mapping in USGS budget hearings - this was noticed
and later commented upon by USGS managers.
Betty
is very highly regarded, for example in the Minnesota
water science and policy community."
The
recipients of the 2014 John C. Frye Environmental Geology Award will be Elizabeth Meredith, John
Wheaton, and Shawn Kuzara, for
the publication “Coalbed Methane Basics: Ten years of lessons from the Powder
River Basin, Montana,” published
by Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology as Information Pamphlet 6 in 2012.
