James H. Clark is a senior vice president of the engineering/construction firm Black & Veatch Corporation, and serves as Managing Director of Major Municipal Clients in the Western Region of North America.  Located at the firm’s Los Angeles office, he has managed numerous environmental and water quality improvement projects, including serving as the Senior Process Engineer and a Project Manager for the design of the City of Los Angeles Hyperion Treatment Plant, a 15-year, $1.1 billion wastewater treatment and reclamation project which was named one of the ten most outstanding public works projects of the 20th Century by the American Public Works Association (along with the Golden Gate Bridge, Hoover Dam, and the Panama Canal); and managed the design for the $200 million facility to provide full secondary treatment to the Orange County (CA) Sanitation District Plant No. 1 with construction completion scheduled for 2012.  He was the Project Director for design, construction, and commissioning of the 1,800 ML/d, $328 million CDN Seymour-Capilano Filtration Plant for Metro Vancouver (Canada), which includes the world’s largest potable water UV disinfection facility.  He recently managed the design for the $100 million expansion of the Orange County (CA) Water District Groundwater Replenishment System, one of the most famous indirect potable reuse projects in the world.

Clark served as president of the Water Environment Federation (WEF), a global technical, scientific, and educational water quality organization, during 2001-2002.  In 2004 he received WEF’s prestigious Charles Alvin Emerson Medal for outstanding service to the wastewater collection and treatment industry, and in 2009 was awarded the Englebrecht International Achievement Award for sustained and significant contributions in the international field.  In November 2004 he was named one of the 50 most influential people in the public works industry by Public Works magazine, and was named the 2005 “Outstanding Civil Engineer in the Private Sector” by the Los Angeles Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

He served on the Water Environment Research Foundation Board of Directors from 1999 through 2001.  In 2002 he was appointed by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to the nine-member international Nominating Committee for the Stockholm Water Prize, the most prestigious global award for water professionals (considered by many to be the Nobel Prize for water), where he served for the maximum allowed six years.  He has also served on the Board of Directors of Water for People, a chartable organization that supports the development of locally sustainable drinking water resources, sanitation facilities and health and hygiene education programs in developing countries.  He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Clean Water America Alliance. 

Clark has authored numerous technical publications and given scores of presentations at conferences and seminars around the world, including a review author for the two most recent editions of Design of Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plants – MOP 8, and a principal author of Odor Control in Wastewater Treatment Plants – MOP 22, and Control of Odors and Emissions from Wastewater Treatment Plants – MOP 25, each considered the best state-of-the-practice technical manuals available.   He directed the Assessment of Reconstruction Costs and Debt Management for Wastewater Utilities Affected by Hurricane Katrina for WEF in 2005-06, and participated in presentations at both houses of Congress as well as a press conference on Capitol Hill.  He was also invited to present these findings in Stockholm, Sweden during World Water Week in August 2006 and as a representative of the United States at the Japan-U.S. Governmental Conference on Drinking Water Quality Management and Wastewater Control in Okinawa in January 2007.
 
Born in Vancouver, Washington, Clark received a B.S. degree cum laude in civil engineering and a M.S. in environmental engineering from Washington State University, and received their Alumni Achievement Award in 2004 “for rendering outstanding contributions to the community, profession and nation.”  Fewer than 500 alumni have been so honored out of over 250,000 graduates.  In 2006 he was selected by WSU to present the Distinguished Lanning Lecture on campus, which was recorded by the local PBS affiliate for broadcast throughout the Pacific Northwest. 

He is a registered Professional Engineer in several states, a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers, and in addition to WEF is a member of the American Water Works Association, American Public Works Association, the National Wildlife Federation, the College of Fellows of the Institute for the Advancement of Engineering, and holds Chair No. 176 in the International Water Academy headquartered in Oslo, Norway.

UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability

Published: Monday, September 17, 2012