Former Fellows Updates

Jennifer Bowles, environmental reporter for the Riverside, Calif. Press-Enterprise, swept the environmental category in this year’s Society of Professional Journalists Inland Southern California chapter awards, taking first, second and third-place wins. Bowles won best environmental story for “Regulators on Location,” an article on the steps movie and commercial productions have to take when shooting in the California desert to limit impact to the fragile environment. Second place went to Bowles’ story “Taking root and taking over,” about the detrimental impacts of invasive plants’ incursion into the California desert. The third-place award was for a story Bowles co-wrote with Lys Mendez called “Septic Tank Turmoil.” The article examined the health impacts of overburdened septic tanks in a working-class community and how pollution from the tanks is traveling down to affect a well-to-do enclave, as well as what a proposed ban on septic tanks in the region would mean for the area.

Elizabeth Bluemink has been writing about the impacts of global warming on Alaska’s Southeast Panhandle in her position as environment reporter for the capital city’s Juneau Empire. Among the observable effects is a decline in yellow cedar in the Tongass National Forest due to reduced snow pack. Bluemink led and co-authored a major project released in August 2005 for the Society of Environmental Journalists’ First Amendment Committee that looked at how the federal government has put up blockades to reporters’ FOIA requests since 2001. The project included a survey of some 50 SEJ members and has received national press coverage. Bluemink also received second-place awards from the Alaska Press Club in 2005 and 2006.

Christine Shenot recently became a project manager at the International City/County Management Association in Washington, D.C., a professional association whose members are local government managers. Her group works on a variety of research and professional development initiatives around particular issues. For Shenot, that has largely involved smart growth, drawing on her experience in her prior post with the State of Maryland where she had worked in the Office of Smart Growth since 2002. Much of her current work involves communications, but her group also puts together training and professional development programs, Webcasts, conference sessions and other endeavors. Her current e-mail address is cshenot@icma.org.