Out of more than 200 nominees, Perry L. McCarty, Silas H. Palmer Professor of Civil Engineering at Stanford University, and Robert M. White, president of the National Academy of Engineering, have been awarded the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement. The 19-year-old prize, awarded May 1, honors individuals or institutions displaying a reverence for the protection, maintenance, and improvement of the world's ecological and environmental conditions. The University of Southern California administers the $150,000 prize, which was split between the two winners.

Last year's recipients were former United States Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, for his campaigns to curb cigarette smoking, and M.S. Swaminathan, an agricultural scientist working in Asia.

`Great National Interest'

McCarty was given the prize this year for his research into the microbiological cleanup of contaminated ground and surface water.

"The biological approach we are trying to develop is of great national interest," he says. "We are learning...

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