2007: Professor Perry L. McCarty
Professor Perry L. McCarty likes to think big but look small. He openly confesses an unabashed fascination with the inner workings of septic tanks, and his unbound excitement for getting behind the microscope to search for the next big thing in the sustainable and healthy reuse of water resources.
Receiving the 2007 Stockholm Water Prize from the hands of H.M. King Carl XVI Gustaf, he humbly joked to the audience that such passions may not be common among the average person. This is fitting, because the lifetime of pioneering achievement in the design and operation of water and wastewater systems for which he was recognized has been nothing short of extraordinary.
His journey began at Stanford University nearly half a century ago, when in 1962 he arrived at the Ivy League school to develop their environmental engineering and sciences program. But he has managed to do much more than build up a single academic institution’s department. Since beginning his post at Stanford, Professor McCarty’s work has defined the entire field of environmental biotechnology, which is the basis for small-scale and large-scale pollution control and safe drinking water systems.
“It is the community of organisms all working together that we need to study and learn more about. We ourselves obviously have much to learn about living together cooperatively, perhaps they can help us to learn how to do this much better than we have. With the coming climate changes we will have to adapt as well, and I hope we do it successfully. I expect we can if we all work together as the micro-organisms in a septic tank have learned to do,” says Dr McCarty.
