Each year, UCOWR recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the organization and names them as "Friends of UCOWR." The 1998 Friends of UCOWR are: Peter Black and Helen Ingram. Peter and Helen were named a Friend for their water related projects at the regional, state and national level.

Peter E. Black is Professor of Water and Related Land Resources at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, NY. He has taught and conducted research at SUNY since 1965. He was awarded the MF and MS degrees from the School of Natural Resources at the University of Michigan in 1956 and 1958, respectively, and the PhD degree in Watershed Management from Colorado State University in 1961. He was a Research Forester at the US Forest Service' Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory in North Carolina from 1956 to 1959, and taught at Humboldt State College in Arcata, CA from 1961 to 1965. He has taught forest management, surveying, and forest hydrology, and currently offers graduate and undergraduate courses in water resources, watershed management, conservation policy, and environmental impact analysis.

Black has published an educational film, numerous articles on hydrology and water resources, and three books entitled Environmental Impact Analysis (Praeger, 1981), Conservation of Water and Related Land Resources (Rowman & Littlefield, Second Edition, 1987); and Watershed Hydrology (Prentice Hall, 1991). In 1974, he co-founded IMPACT CONSULTANTS, a private firm in Syracuse, for which he served as EIS project manager for twelve years. He is a member of several professional organizations, served as President (and held many other offices) in the American Water Resources Association, including General Chairperson for its 1987 Summer Symposium entitled Water Quality Monitoring, Modeling, and Mediation, its 1996 Summer Symposium entitled Watershed Restoration Management, and Building Interdisciplinary Water Resources Partnerships in 1998. Black holds Environmental Professional Certification by the National Association of Environmental Professionals and has served on its Education Committee. He served on local and state advisory committees; the Board of Directors of the Universities Council on Water Resources (1994-97); and the US Army Corps of Engineers' Environmental Advisory Board in 1991-96, and its Chairperson in 1995-96, for which received the Commander's Award for Public Service in November, 1996. Black was appointed SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor in 1997.

Helen Ingram is the Warmington Endowed Chair in the School of Social Ecology and the Department of Political Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. She was previously director of the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy at the University of Arizona, a professor in the Department of Political Science & the School of Public Administration and Policy, with a joint appointment in the Department of Hydrology and Water Resources. Dr. Ingram's research specialities are the policymaking process and policy implementation as well as, more recently, policy design. In the field of water resources she is best known for her contribution to the understanding of the politics of policymaking. Dr. Ingram has served on a number of National Research Council committees. She was also one of four U.S. members taking part in the NRC's binational study, "The Use of the Mexico City Aquifer as a Water Supply Resource." Her recent books include: Policy Design for Democracy (with Anne Schneider, 1997), Divided Water: Bridging the U.S.-Mexico Border (*with Nancy Laney and David Gillilan, 1995), Public Policy for Democracy (with S.R. Smith, 1993), Water Politics: Continuity and Change (1990), Does Anybody Win? The Community Consequences of Rural-to-Urban Water Transfers (with C.R. Oggins, 1990), and Water and Poverty in the Southwest (with L. Brown, 1987).