The American Association of Port of Authorities has announced the 2010 winners of the trade group's annual awards for communications, information technology, engineering and environmental achievement.
The Port of Los Angeles is the 2010 winner of the Dan Maynard Communications Award for Overall Excellence. It is the third time in six years the port has taken home the AAPA's top award for overall achievement in such communications areas as advertising, annual report design, and other publications and public outreach efforts. In total, Los Angeles racked up seven individual communications awards during the 2010 awards period including top honors in the best single advertising, audio program, web-based media and miscellaneous categories.
The Port of Los Angeles was also named a co-winner of the 2010 AAPA Information Technology Awards for the port's $1.9 million Enterprise Geographic Information System Project, which integrated legacy and modern GIS systems at the port. This marks the first time Los Angeles has taken top honors in the IT division of the AAPA awards.
Named as co-winner of the 2010 IT award was last year's sole winner of the honor, the Port of Miami. The port was recognized this year for its Radar/AIS (Automatic Identification System) Waterside Surveillance System. The system provides an automated, real-time, situational awareness solution to assist seaport security officers in detecting, identifying, tracking and graphically displaying all stationary and moving targets in the waterways surrounding the port. This year's award marks the third time the Miami has taken top IT honors since the AAPA began offering IT awards in 2002.
The Port of Long Beach and the Maryland Port Administration took home top engineering honors as the co-winners of the AAPA's 8th annual Facilities Engineering Award.
Long Beach was honored for its $73-million environmental cleanup of a 123-acre port-area brownfield polluted by decades of dumping and oil production waste products. The site is destined for development as a container terminal. It is the second time Long Beach has taken top honors for engineering since the AAPA began offering the awards in 2003.
Maryland port engineers were honored the port's $123 million Masonville Dredged Material Containment Facility project – a 141-acre area within Baltimore Harbor constructed to confine an estimated 15.4 million cubic yards of material from new navigation deepening and maintenance dredging through 2030. This marks the MPA's first AAPA award for top engineering excellence.
The Maryland Port Administration also took home top environmental honors along with the ports of Tacoma and Seattle.
The MPA was awarded the AAPA's 2010 Environmental Mitigation Award for its mitigation program that provides replacements for habitat lost resulting from development of the aforementioned Masonville Dredged Material Containment Facility. It is the MPA's third top award for environmental excellence from the AAPA since 1973.
The Port of Tacoma was named as the winner of this year's Environmental Enhancement Award for the Port of Tacoma Demolition Program. The program resulted in the port and its tenants recovering or recycling 7,071 tons of material from 57 structures being removed from the Blair-Hylebos Peninsula and surrounding Tacoma Tideflats area during marine terminal, road and rail development. The Tacoma port has received four top AAPA awards, including this year's, for environmental efforts since 1973.
The Port of Seattle was named by the AAPA as the winner of the 2010 Comprehensive Environmental Management Award for its Environmental Compliance Assessment Program. Seattle port officials implemented the program in 2009 to evaluate and assist with tenant environmental compliance to better meet high public expectations and stringent compliance regulations for environmental quality. The Port of Seattle has garnered eight top environmental awards from the AAPA since 1973.
The AAPA awards will be formally presented at a Sept. 22 luncheon during the AAPA's 99th Annual Convention to be held in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada from Sept. 19 to Sept. 23.
The AAPA is a trade group representing the port authorities of 160 of the leading seaports in the United States, Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean.
(Disclosure: PMM's Keith Higginbotham was part of the Port of Long Beach communications team that won several AAPA awards between 2002 and 2007, including the Dan Maynard Communications Award for Overall Excellence in 2004.)
