The 2019 Community Sentinel Award for
Environmental Stewardship

About the Award

The impacts of the oil and gas industry are visible across the United States: farms sliced by dangerous pipelines, neighborhoods invaded with fracked wells, towns choked by petrochemical emissions, streams littered with throwaway plastics, regions plagued by extreme weather and a changed climate. But hope abounds in the thousands of volunteers working in their communities and cherished places to document, report, and confront such fossil fuel harms.

To honor these environmental heroes, FracTracker Alliance created the annual Community Sentinel Award for Environmental Stewardship, now in its fifth year, to celebrate individuals whose noble actions exemplify the transformative power of caring, committed, and engaged people. In collaboration with a supportive lineup of sponsors and partners, the award is presented to multiple recipients at a festive reception before a group of fellow activists and others who champion a healthy, sustainable future. Each awardee will also receive $1,000 in recognition of their efforts.

Additionally, each year during the Community Sentinel Award ceremony, we take a moment to honor environmental heroes who passed away in the previous year with the Legacy of Heroes recognition.

Congratulations to this year’s Sentinel Award winners:

Ron Gulla, Sharon Lavigne, Allie Rosenbluth, and Melissa Troutman.

After being nominated by peers this summer, recipients were selected by a committee of five community defense leaders and environmental champions from around the country. This year’s judges were Mariah Davis (Choose Clean Water Coalition), Brenda Jo McManama (Indigenous Environmental Network), Kathleen Brophy (Oxfam), Dr. Pamela Calla (New York University), and Matt Krogh (Stand.earth).

We are also honored to recognize the following two individuals posthumously for the Legacy of Heroes recognition: 

Bill Hughes, April Pierson-Keating, Ricky Allen Roles, and John Trallo Sr.

The reception and ceremony will coincide with the oil and gas industry’s three-day Shale Insight Conference. It seems fitting and appropriate to recognize the fighters and victims of dirty energy and petrochemical development opposite the nearby perpetrators of the harms.

Register to join us for the reception and awards ceremony to be held Tuesday evening, October 22ⁿᵈ in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Tickets to the Community Sentinel Award reception cost $40 per person, and include the award ceremony, networking, dinner, and a cash bar. Attendees of the concurrent Break Free From Plastic conference qualify for a discounted rate, and the registration fee is waived for partner organizations.

The reception will feature the keynote speaker Andrey Rudomakha, Director of Environmental Watch on the North Caucasusas, and inspirational emcee David Braun of Rootskeeper.

We look forward to seeing you there!