Grantham Prize Jurors' Comments on the Winning Entries

2009 Grantham Prize Winner

“The Smokestack Effect: Toxic Air and America's Schools”
Blake Morrison & Brad Heath
USA TODAY

USA TODAY took science-based journalism to a new level when it merged government data on industrial polluters with the locations of 127,800 public, private and parochial schools.  Teaming with academic researchers, reporters Blake Morrison and Brad Heath applied the government’s own long-neglected statistical model to this huge database and ranked the schools according to their modeled risk for air pollution. The newspaper then validated the findings by dispatching 30 reporters to directly monitor the air at 95 schools in 30 states. Their discovery of elevated hazards outside 64 of the schools drew quick responses and local efforts to protect school children across the nation.  An interactive web site allowed readers to check the results at their own schools.

Morrison and Heath humanized the issue with examples of children suffering from pollution-related disease, and were careful to point out the value and limitations of this sort of analysis. The impact of the series was demonstrated by the response of Lisa Jackson, head of the Environmental Protection Agency in the new administration, who promised quick federal action to follow up the newspaper investigation with air testing at more schools.

The scale and ambition of this series, as well as its quick effect in raising awareness of the potential dangers to schoolchildren make "The Smokestack Effect" a worthy winner of the 2009 Grantham Prize.

Award of Special Merit

“e²: transport”
Tad Fettig, Karena Albers, & Veronique Bernard
kontentreal

Much reporting on the environment leaves readers and viewers with a sense of despair. The problems are so enormous, so daunting, that doing anything about them as an individual often seems futile.
 
Not so with “e²: transport.” This television project, an installment of a larger PBS series covering a range of environmental topics, is remarkable in the manner in which it captures human spirit and ingenuity around the world in tackling one of the modern world’s biggest challenges: How to move people around without further damaging the Earth.
 
The e² team traveled to London to tell the tale of how a visionary mayor bucked pressure to build an effective transit system; to Paris to relate how an unlikely business – the world’s largest billboard company – was co-opted to fund a massive initiative to get Parisians out of their cars and on to bicycles; and to Seoul to report on how a devastated waterway was restored to become the center of public life. Other chapters looked at Portland’s collective courage in making transportation decisions, and at the importance of local food production in an environmental context.
 
The writing, videography, editing and online presentation of this series are all superb. It is a prime example of the transformative power of television when – as is too seldom the case – it is done well and on a worthy topic.

Award of Special Merit

“Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent”
Andrew Nikiforuk
Greystone Books

The tar sands oil development in Alberta, Canada, may be the largest single fossil fuel project on the planet, covering an area the size of Florida. The International Energy Agency estimates the amount of recoverable oil trapped in Alberta's sandy soil at roughly 170 billion barrels, putting Canada second only to Saudi Arabia in oil reserves. Some geologists suggest that the tar sands could eventually yield 10 times that amount. Whatever the number, most of Canada's politicians and industrial leaders endorse the project. Every major oil company now owns a lease in the tar sands, and there is obviously big money to be made, not only for the these companies but for Canada and its citizens.

Andrew Nikiforuk, a Canadian journalist and award-winning magazine writer, has an entirely different take on the tar sands development. In his book -- Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent -- Nikiforuk argues that the project is not only bad for Canada but, worse, constitutes a double-barreled threat to the planet as a whole.

He writes that producing oil from tar sands is a hugely energy-intensive process that emits two to three times the greenhouse gas pollution of conventional oil. At the same time, the process greatly diminishes Canada's ancient Boreal Forest -- a major storehouse of terrestrial carbon that would be released into the atmosphere when the trees are flattened for oil. Not incidentally, the forest is also the reservoir for a significant fraction of Canada's fresh water supply, and home to a rich variety of wildlife.

Nikiforuk makes no secret of where his sympathies lie: He is deeply opposed to the projects. He is also, however, a careful and diligent researcher and writer, and his book makes excellent reading. "Tar Sands" is  a valuable and timely reminder of the mounting environmental costs of our addiction to oil.

Award of Special Merit

"Chemical Fallout”
Susanne Rust & Meg Kissinger
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel series “Chemical Fallout” reveals important information about the government’s lack of oversight of hazardous chemicals the public is exposed to every day.
 
Reporters Susanne Rust and Meg Kissinger determined that the EPA allows companies to keep information about hazardous chemicals secret, despite rules mandating disclosure.  Rust and Kissinger found evidence that an EPA program designed to warn the public about toxic chemicals favors the chemical industry in reporting possible threats.  A flame retardant taken out of children’s pajamas years ago after being found carcinogenic is now being used in furniture and baby carriers, and manufacturers are under no obligation to relay this to consumers.
 
The series also revealed that the toxic chemical bisphenol A (BPA) leaches out of food containers labeled “microwave safe.”  The Journal Sentinel had a laboratory test ten items, including products marketed for babies, and found BPA at levels that several scientific studies say harm lab animals. 
 
Rust and Kissinger spent months consulting with scientists and studying government databases and peer-reviewed research.  Their straightforward, no-hype writing style and good use of tables and graphics made the series a pleasure to read.  “Chemical Fallout” exemplifies the good that journalists can do given the time and resources.