HOUSTON, TX — Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam Inc. (LAN) of Houston, Texas, has earned a National Recognition Award for exemplary engineering achievement in the American Council of Engineering Companies’ (ACEC) 59th annual Engineering Excellence Awards (EEA). The award comes for Southwest Pump Station Secondary Refill Line project in Houston.
LAN served as program manager and technical advisor for the project, which enhances the city’s water transmission system and supports long-term service reliability for a growing population. Providing a critical parallel supply to the aging primary refill line, the Secondary Refill Line delivers essential resilience to one of Houston’s most important water facilities. Developed over 10 years, the project includes 17,800 feet of 72-in-diameter water line extending from Midtown to Montrose. The alignment’s route across six historic districts, multiple management districts and tax increment reinvestment zones, and several institutions required extensive coordination and planning.
Construction took place in a dense urban environment, with the route intersecting major streets, utility corridors, and areas with significant tree canopy. Full-width pavement reconstruction, drainage upgrades, integrated utility improvements, and mobility enhancements were incorporated across the corridor. The project also included 1,500 tree evaluations and adjustments to work around ordinance-protected live oaks estimated to be up to 300 years old.
Judging for the awards program was conducted by a national 32-member panel of built environment leaders, along with experts from government, the media, and academia. Award criteria focused on uniqueness and originality, technical innovation, social and economic value, and excitement generated toward the engineering profession.
All 240 award winners — including 16 Honor Awards, eight Grand Awards, and the announcement of the Grand Conceptor Award for the year’s most outstanding overall engineering achievement — will take place at the 2026 EEA Gala at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C.
