at NJBIA’s 2005 Awards for Excellence
Dinner held at the Westin Princeton at Forrestal Village
on October 18.
“The winners were selected because they are the
best of the best. They have succeeded not only as private
sector companies, but in improving people’s lives
and our communities,” NJBIA President Philip Kirschner
told a crowd of 240 at the event. “New Jersey
American Water’s tremendous commitment to environmental
protection has made a real difference in the community
of Bound Brook.”
When confronted with contamination on someone else’s
property, few companies would bother to clean it up.
But not New Jersey American Water, a provider of drinking
water and wastewater services to both business and residential
customers.
During the installation of a 72-inch water main reinforcement
pipe in the South Bound Brook area, New Jersey American
Water realized that it would have to cross a former
asbestos dump and an area heavily contaminated with
arsenic. Although the company could have easily diverted
its pipes to avoid the contaminated area, or only cleaned
the 10 percent of the contaminants that posed a problem
to its project, it decided to clean the entire area
so it could be turned into a children’s park for
the surrounding community.
Keeping the community informed throughout the process
and keeping the workers safe through daily air monitoring,
New Jersey American Water successfully removed or cleaned
a total of 4,000 tons of asbestos-containing materials
and 21,000 tons of arsenic-contaminated soils. The formerly
affected soils now meet strict state cleanup standards,
and the company has turned the area into a park that
is safe for community use.
Since 1984, NJBIA annually has honored a select group
of its members with an Award for Excellence. The Awards
for Excellence winners demonstrate outstanding achievements
in one of four award categories: Environmental Quality,
OutstandingEmployer, Enterprise and Public Service.
All 23,000 NJBIA member companies are eligible to be
nominated.
An independent panel of judges reviewed the nominations.
Eighteen members of the Service Corps of Retired Executives
(SCORE) volunteered their time to conduct the judging.
They were joined by four members of NJBIA’s policy
committees: William Baney and Joann Trezza of the Human
Resources Committee, and Tom Eckhoff and John Kinkela
of the Environmental Quality Committee.
Mercadien P.C., Certified Public Accountants of Princeton,
verified the information supplied by the winning applicants.
With more than 23,000 members, NJBIA is the nation’s
largest state-level employer association.
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