WASHINGTON, D.C. – The National Rural Water Association awarded Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia with the prestigious Rural Water Lifetime Achievement award today.
          The award is to honor individuals who have made dedicated and long-time contributions to rural water. The award is presented on behalf of NRWA’s 26,696 member utilities, and state affiliates.
          “It is my honor to present this Lifetime Achievement Award to a man who has spent his career bringing water to, literally, millions of people,” said Rob Johnson, NRWA CEO Senator Byrds’s positions on the Senate Appropriations Committee, including the subcommittee on Energy and Water Development and the subcommittee on Interior and Environment, have made him an invaluable friend to rural water. His is also known as a long-time friend of rural American, finding ways to fund a variety of projects to assist its development.
          “I am humbled by your selection,” Byrd said during a speech filled with emotion and punctuated by bursts of enthusiasm. “I’m also proud of my efforts to bring safe drinking water to millions of rural Americans.”
         “If this is a lifetime achievement award, my work in supplying clean water to rural American is far from finished,” the Senator said.
         Byrd has been a Senator since January 3, 1959 and is the longest-serving member in the Senate's history. In 1952, Byrd was elected as a member of the United States House of Representatives for West Virginia's 6th Congressional District. He was reelected to the House twice, and served in total from January 3, 1953 to 1959. Byrd was elected to the United States Senate in 1958. He has been reelected eight times.
          “Today millions of Americans are forced to depend on insufficient supplies of drinking water,” Byrd said. He explained that according to the USDA, 2 million Americans were “critically” lacking clean water supply, while another 5 million were considered “severe”
         “There is no reason, in this day and age, for Americans to depend on insufficient, dirty, water,” He said. The Rural Water Star is part of the NRWA’s Awards in Excellence program, which was established to recognize outstanding efforts in the rural water industry.
          The NRWA, American’s largest utility association, trains over 60,000 water and wastewater personnel each year through its state affiliates. State personnel in all 50 states and Puerto Rico also make over 100,000 on-site technical assistance visits a year. 

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