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Dr. Ivor Van Heerden Awarded The Joe A. Callaway Award For Civic Courage |
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 On December 16, 2009 Dr. Ivor Van Heerden was awarded the Joe A.
Callaway award for Civic Courage. This award has been given annually
since 1990. Through the award "individuals are recognized who take a
public stance to advance truth and justice and who challenge prevailing
conditions in pursuit of common good, with integrity and some personal
risk." The award presentation was made before the national media in
Washington D.C.
In response to learning that he was to receive this award Dr. Van
Heerden said, "this is obviously a real honor and is in recognition of
my efforts to warn of an event such as Katrina taking place; my
whistleblower role in exposing the Corps of Engineers through being
head of 'Team Louisiana', the official state of Louisiana forensic
investigation into the levee failures during the hurricane that caused
80% of the flooding; and, my role in assisting the litigation against
the Corps that resulted in the landmark ruling against the Corps of
Engineers by Federal Judge Duval a couple of weeks back. That ruling
will ultimately mean billions of dollars for Louisiana including
compensation for those ordinary citizens (over 400,000) who lost so
much at no fault of their own - they did not design or build the
levees. Recognizing this fact the Governor's Office was one of the
first to congratulate me after the ruling became public."
Read a little more about this in Mark Ford's article "Dr. Ivor van
Heerdon receives Civic Courage award for post Katrina efforts" on
Examiner.com.
Dr. Ivor Van Heerden has been an important part of the LEAN Family for
many years now and we would like to send a big congratulations out to
him. We are very proud and happy that he is finally getting some
recognition for the important role that he is playing to help make
Louisiana safe for current and future generations.
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