NEW ORLEANS (press release) — The Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana will present its Coastal Stewardship Lifetime Achievement Award to Steve Cochran this May. The presentation will be a tribute to his decades of service as an advocate for Louisiana’s coast. Cochran, who is retired, was the first executive director of the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation (now known as Pontchartrain Conservancy). He also was a former member of the Governor’s Commission for Coastal Affairs and the CPRA Coastal Advisory Task Force. He served as executive director of Restore the Mississippi River Delta and in several roles at the Environmental Defense Fund.
Cochran will be honored at CRCL’s Coastal Stewardship Awards celebration May 9 in Baton Rouge. Tickets for the event at SoLou restaurant are available online. Louisiana seafood and other local cuisines will be served at the celebration, and beer and wine also will be provided. There also will be a silent auction. Sponsors for the CRCL Coastal Stewardship Awards are EMR Metal Recycling, APTIM, Jacobs, Halff Inc., Elos Environmental and C.H. Fenstermaker and Associates. Sponsorships are still available.
Other winners of CRCL Coastal Stewardship Awards who will be honored at the event are:
- Justin Ehrenwerth, posthumous. Ehrenwerth, who died in 2023, was president and CEO at The Water Institute, where his technical work focused on navigating the intersections of environmental, economic and social factors. Prior to that, he was the first executive director of the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council, worked as assistant counsel to the president and received the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s General Counsel’s Award for Excellence for his work on the oil spill.
- The Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority’s 2023 Coastal Master Plan team, Sue Hawes Award. The plan, the fourth iteration developed by the state, outlines $50 billion in coastal restoration and protection projects over the next 50 years. The projects in the globally recognized plan include levee construction, sediment diversions that will recreate the natural processes that built southeast Louisiana and 21 dredging projects. The plan was unanimously approved by the Legislature. Stuart Brown and Krista Jankowski will accept the award on behalf of the CPRA Master Plan team.
- Blaise Pezold. Pezold is the coastal and environmental program manager at the Meraux Foundation. He has led projects including the Chandeleur Sound Living Shoreline, and he champions the use of native vegetation in wetlands restoration work. His organization is a member of the Central Wetlands Reforestation Collective, which is planting more than 30,000 bald cypress trees in an area that was once bottomland hardwood forest in New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish.
- Jacqueline Richard. Richard, a former CRCL Volunteer of the Year, is the director of coastal studies and GIS technologies at Nunez Community College. She has worked with countless students to provide hands-on experiences and education that can translate into certifications and degrees, preparing them for jobs in the coastal sector. She also has helped train other education professionals around the country and is a frequent volunteer.
- Kenneth Bahlinger. Bahlinger led the state’s Coast Vegetative Planting Program for nearly two decades, first at the Department of Natural Resources Office of Coastal Restoration and later at the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority. He has planted or supervised the planting of more than 1 million native plants across coastal Louisiana.
- Polly Glover. Glover, the project coordinator at Restore or Retreat, has become recognized locally and nationally for her support of coastal communities, the seafood industry and restoration projects and for her work to connect with government officials and civic organizations.
- Mike Phelan, Friend of CRCL Award. Phelan, an account director at GTB, has helped bring numerous Southern Quality Ford Dealers employees to volunteer events and nominated CRCL for the Ford Bronco Wild Fund, creating a lasting legacy of stewardship with the organization.
- Tom Schrilla, Volunteer of the Year Award. Schrilla, an emergency manager for the city of New Orleans, has been volunteering with CRCL for nearly 10 years. In addition to planting trees and bagging shells with CRCL, he stays involved with other volunteer groups doing coastal, environmental and disaster relief work across south Louisiana.
- Darria Leggett, Emerging Steward Award. Leggett, a student at Xavier University, facilitated the donation of 4,000 plugs of spartina grass from the Xavier Horticulture Club to CRCL’s Native Plants Program. She then helped plan and implement cypress seed collection on the Xavier campus, attended seed-processing events and dehusked and sorted seeds. She helped include CRCL as a service organization in Xavier’s annual Service Saturday, recruiting more than 100 volunteers to plant trees, bag oyster shells and work in CRCL’s native plants nursery. She is helping plan and host an environmental panel at Xavier as part of their Earth Week festivities this month. The Emerging Steward Award was formerly known as the Student Volunteer of the Year.
“We received many great nominations for our awards this year, and this is an inspiring group of winners,” said Kim Reyher, executive director of CRCL. “We are honored to be celebrating their achievements with them.”
CRCL has presented the Coastal Stewardship Awards annually since 1996. Members of the public nominate people, organizations and other entities for the awards each year. An awards selection committee then evaluates each nomination and selects the winners.
