Sands Wins Top Ten Award
For Innovative Solutions

William B. Sands, Director of Public Works, Decatur, Illinois has been selected as one of the Top Ten Public Works Leaders of the Year for 1989. The purpose of the program is to inspire excellence and dedication in public service by recognizing outstanding public works officials. Sands and nine other winners were chosen by a distinguished panel of judges representing the key functional areas in the field of public works.

Sands directs the city's five public works divisions. Since 1970, approximately $175 million worth of public works improvements have been completed throughout Decatur. Sands developed both the yearly capital improvement budget and the five-year capital improvement program. The public works annual operating budget has grown from $500,000 to $9.5 million during Sands' tenure,

During 1988, Decatur's 94,000 residents suffered through an extreme drought which had disastrous effects on its water supply (Lake Decatur). Sands chaired a task force whose mission was to find and develop both interim and long-term solutions. Emergency dredging kept lake water accessible to the North Treatment Plant. Developing a water mining operation in a known water-bearing aquifer also helped. Officials pumped water from a privately owned lake to the South Water Treatment Plant. Temporary dams were constructed to provide water.

Another major accomplishment was developing an innovative technique of cold-mix recycling which allows incorporation of existing oil and chip pavement into a final stabilized bituminous base. The process produces a structually adequate pavement for less than one-third the cost of conventional methods.

Sands received his B.S. in civil engineering in 1950 and is both a registered professional engineer and land surveyor in Illinois. His extensive involvement in APWA includes serving as Illinois Chapter President and Delegate. Sands will receive his award on May 19, 1989 in Bloomington, Illinois at APWA's Tri-State Conference.

The other nine Top Ten are: Vijay Bhasin, P.E., Director of Public Works, Creve Couer, Missouri; Roger Clark, Director of Public Works, Kingsport, Tennessee; Edward Y. Hirata, Director, Hawaii Department of Transportation, Honolulu; Robert S. Horii, City Engineer, Los Angeles; George Knecht, Managing Engineer, Solid Waste Disposal Division, Jacksonville, Florida; Max G. Peterson, City Engineer, Salt Lake City, Utah; S. Robert Pryzby, Director of Public Works, Glastonbury, Connecticut; Lt. Col. Earnest O. Robbins III, Director, Operations and Maintenance, Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida; and Evelyn Waldrop, Director of Physical and Environmental Services Cabinet, Jefferson County Government, Louisville, Kentucky.

The Top Ten Award program highlights the annual observance of National Public Works Week (May 21- 27) throughout the United States and Canada. Co-sponsors for National Public Works Week and Top Ten are: American Society of Civil Engineers, American Water Works Association, Canadian Association of Municipal Administrators, Canadian Public Works Association, Council of State Governments, Federation of Canadian Municipalities, Institute of Transportation Engineers, National Association of Counties, National League of Cities, National Society of Professional Engineers, and Water Pollution Control Federation. •

May 1989 / Illinois Municipal Review / Page 7