The National Hydropower Association (NHA) this week honored the Ohio Municipal Energy Generating Agency Joint Venture 5 (OMEGA JV5) Belleville Hydroelectric Plant with an Outstanding Stewards of America’s Waters (OSAW) award for operational excellence.
Linda Church Ciocci, NHA executive director, said “the OSAW awards recognize the industry’s most innovative approaches to fulfilling its obligations as stewards of our rivers and natural resources. The award went to OMEGA JV5 and American Municipal Power (AMP), which serves as agent for the joint venture.
Belleville won for safety excellence. Since the day the plant began producing electricity in 1999, Belleville has never had a reportable or lost-time incident, covering a period of more than 150,000 man hours. The NHA noted Belleville’s record “is especially notable as the employees created their safety program from scratch and no employees had previous hydro experience.”
Further, the same six employees—Charles Bailey (Parkersburg, WV), Anthony Belcher (Little Hocking, OH), George Connolly (Syracuse, OH), James Dinnen and Matthew Steele (Washington, WV), and Matthew McDaniel (Portland, OH)—have worked at Belleville from the first day of operation until now.
“These six employees have done an outstanding job from day one on this project. They’ve exhibited great teamwork and safety awareness, and have helped the Belleville plant achieve an admirable operating history,” said Marc Gerken, AMP president/CEO. “As the hydroelectric projects AMP is now developing become operational, the Belleville employee experience, safety program and forthcoming employee training program will be beneficial for those projects.”
Lela Katzman, president of Full Spectrum Communications and chair of the OSAW Judging Panel and Linda Church Ciocci, executive director of the National Hydropower Association, presented the Outstanding Stewards of America’s Waters award to Mike Perry, American Municipal Power vice president of generation services and George Connolly, Belleville operations & maintenance supervisor.
View the official AMP news release
View the National Hydropower Association news release
View the OSAW Fact Sheet