The Orangetown Highway Department honored groups and individuals that contribute to the environment as part of the Highway Awards Presentation this week.
Laurie Seeman accepted the Steam Stewardship Award on behalf of the Sparkill Creek Watershed Alliance.
"The Watershed Alliance has been doing great things since they formed in 2010," Orangetown Highway Superintendent James Dean said. "They partner with local and state agencies to do what they can to see what's going on with Sparkill Creek, protect it and do nice things with it."
Among the group's work is monitoring creek conditions and holding regular cleanups.
Dean also presented Community Clean-up Awards to two individuals who organized cleanups in their communities in April, Gerry Collins of Pearl River and Janet Weber of Blauvelt.
"They put in countless hours of volunteer work to organize the cleanup in Pearl River and the cleanup in Blauvelt," Dean said. "Each group had over 100 people and picked up over 230 bags full."
In addition to those honors and the Fred Hahn Highway Hero Awards, the department also recognized employees with perfect attendance for 2012, which included Tom Caputo, Christopher Coyle, Jim Dillon, Frank Paglioroli, Stephen Munno and Michael Yannazzone.
"When we started this a number of years ago, it came out corny, a perfect attendance award like you might get in grammar school," Dean said. "But the work we do, the weather we work in and the construction work we do, sometimes it's a real challenge to come to work every day."
Yannazzone, the department's general foreman, has received the award 17 times.
"He leads by example," Dean said.
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