BATH – Bangor activists who successfully opposed a Wal-Mart Supercenter development near Penjajawok Marsh were honored Wednesday night at the Natural Resources Council of Maine annual meeting.

Bangor Area Citizens for Responsible Development was one of four recipients of the group’s annual environmental awards.

“BACORD was David to Wal-Mart’s Goliath,” said Lisa Pohlmann, president of the NRCM board of directors. “Its members took on a protracted, expensive and time-consuming battle, because they knew they were right.”

This past spring, the state Board of Environmental Protection ended years of fighting with a decision in BACORD’s favor and a denial of Wal-Mart’s application.

Several members of the group were on hand to accept the award, including Valerie Carter, who spoke of how the group members’ disparate backgrounds in wildlife protection, downtown preservation and social justice issues came together for a common good.

“The people of Bangor – including myself – had never heard of the marsh before this,” she said. “I think we were kind of stunned when we actually won.”

Other award recipients included David Amory, a Portland lawyer who has dedicated more than 1,500 hours of his time to NRCM efforts to oppose an electricity transmission line through the wilds of Washington and Hancock counties; the members of Kennebec Valley Trout Unlimited, who worked for the successful removal of Edwards Dam and now continue their efforts to restore the Kennebec River watershed; and Bob Kimber, a writer from Temple who has been active with NRCM for 35 years, while writing such books as “A Canoeist’s Sketchbook” and “Living Wild and Domestic.”

NRCM Executive Director Brownie Carson took the podium to share his pride in Maine’s environmental accomplishments over the past year and his fears about federal policies.

Carson trumpeted the River Driver’s Agreement, which may bring peace to the Allagash Wilderness Waterway; he celebrated the Penobscot River Restoration Project, with its aim of restoring sea-run fish to the Penobscot River; and the continuing land preservation work that needs approval of the new $100 million Land for Maine’s Future bond, proposed by Gov. Baldacci.

“Without NRCM, Maine would be a very, very different place,” Carson said. “Augusta, and the democracy that we practice here is a world apart from politics in Washington.”

In the federal hall of power, and occasionally even in Maine, industry lobbyists can far outnumber elected senators and representatives, he said.

Carson was particularly angered by the now-defeated federal energy bill which was, in his words, “the most destructive piece of legislation that I’ve seen in more than 20 years.”

He encouraged the group’s members to become involved, not only in Augusta and their own communities, but also at the federal level.

“If there was ever a time for the environmental community to dig in … to buckle up … and really bear down on the issues we care about, it is this coming year,” Carson said. “We all certainly need to get out there and vote 11 months from now.”