2025 Andy Aldax Watershed Award Goes to Rich Harvey

From left to right: CWSD Chairman Mike Workman, Rich Harvey, Kate Harvey and David Griffith. Photo courtesy of Lindsay Marsh.
The Carson Water Subconservancy District (CWSD) Board of Directors presented the 2025 Andy Aldax Carson River Watershed Award to Dr. Rich Harvey during their monthly meeting on Jan. 15. The award, named for longtime CWSD Director Andy Aldax, recognizes the exemplary service of individuals and organizations who devote 10 years or more to conserving and protecting the Carson River Watershed.
Dr. Harvey has embraced both watershed health and the health of community members since his move to Markleeville, CA with his wife, Kate. After years as an ER doctor in Berkeley, CA, he became Alpine County’s Public Health Officer. In 1988, he was among the original members of Friends of Hope Valley, a grassroots nonprofit dedicated to preserving Hope Valley and other areas within Alpine County’s eastern Sierra slope. At the time, there were proposals to construct a major power line through the valley and develop a large community with condominiums, according to Alpine County District 5 Supervisor David Griffith, who also serves on the CWSD Board.
“Friends of Hope Valley was instrumental in getting over $20 million in funding to purchase the bulk of Hope Valley and transfer it to the State, which has assured that the West Fork of the Carson River would be preserved into the future,” said Griffith in his award support letter.
In 2005 Harvey joined the board of Alpine Watershed Group (AWG), a nonprofit that works to protect, conserve, and restore Alpine County’s watersheds; he served as its chairperson from 2017-2022.
“Rich leads by example, getting his hands dirty to keep our watershed clean,” said AWG Executive Director Kimra McAfee. His on-the-ground efforts have ranged from trash pickup during Alpine County’s annual Death Ride cycling race and for the CalTrans Adopt-A-Highway program to willow planting along the Carson River’s West Fork. Advocacy efforts include restoration of and erosion protection for Markleeville Creek; public access to Pleasant Valley for hiking and stream restoration; and instituting a monitoring program for sampling for Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products (PPCPs) and Contaminants of Emergency Concern (CECs). McAfee also thanked Harvey for his leadership when she became executive director in 2018.
Fellow AWG board member Zach Wood lauded Harvey’s ability to rally support. “You make community happen through what you do, and that’s an inspiration to us all,” said Wood. “The mountains, the watershed, give us so much, and we can do just a little bit of what we can to give back. Thank you, because that’s what keeps me going.”
“They say you protect what you love, and I love the mountains,” said Harvey upon accepting his award. He said his first exposure to the Sierra Nevada was as a nine-year-old during a cross-country move from Ontario, Canada to the Bay Area. “I remember my dad saying how frightened he was to drive over Donner Pass because we had heard all the way across the country that it was the most dangerous pass in the world, but I was struck by how beautiful it was,” he said. After subsequent summers fishing and hiking at an Alpine County Boy Scout camp and his family’s Donner Lake cabin, Harvey was hooked. Citing his volunteer work as “a passion and never a burden,” he thanked Kate for her support through many meetings and field work hours and read the following from U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón’s “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa,” which he said moved him:
And it is not darkness that unites us,
not the cold distance of space, but
the offering of water, each drop of rain,
each rivulet, each pulse, each vein.
O second moon, we, too, are made
of water, of vast and beckoning seas.
Dr. Harvey left the audience with one final thought. “Loren Eiseley wrote, ‘If there’s magic on the planet, it’s contained in water.’ So I guess that makes us all magicians.”
The presentation of the Andy Aldax Carson River Watershed Award is an annual highlight for the CWSD Board of Directors. Created in 2007, the award honors the legacy of the late Andy Aldax, a 53-year CWSD Board Director and a tireless agricultural advocate and watershed steward for the Carson River Watershed.