Baker Mayor Harold Rideau accepted the Leo Bankston Award last week at the Baker City Council meeting.

The Leo Bankston award is given annually by the Capital Area Ground Water Conservation Commission District ground and recognizes good stewardship of our ground water resources. Any ground water user in the CAGWCC District that has implemented significant reductions in ground water use or has helped protect the Baton Rouge aquifer system eligible.

For 2012, the award is presented to the city of Baker for their installation of an automated water meter system for the 86 percent of the total users who do not have meters and to replace old meters with new ones.

Users without meters have been paying a flat rate to the city of Baker so there was no incentive to conserve water.

This project called for a water meter at every residence and will allow residents to monitor their water use and conserve water where they can. It is estimated that installing the meters will help save 21 million gallons of ground water a month.

This was a Green Project, partially funded by the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality Clean Water State Revolving Loan Fund with funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

DEQ Secretary Peggy Hatch and DEQ Deputy Secretary Alex Appeaning attended the award presentation.