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.
Showing posts with label fellows. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fellows. Show all posts
Thursday, June 1, 2006
Law Seminar to Colorado Plateau Leaves Fellows Spellbound
By Wendy Worrall Redal
On a cool March night atop Black Mesa, a fire crackled against the dark sky. To a circle of rapt listeners, Vernon Masayesva recounted Hopi legends while his guests ate the thin, parchment-like bread traditionally served to visitors, made from blue corn and soot. Every so often his cousin Jerry would stir the fire, sending sparks swirling up around Vernon's head, rising toward the stars above.
The mesa, the guests learned, is the center of the earth for the Hopi people who have lived there for hundreds of years. Beneath it lies a breathing aquifer, drawing in rain and snow and exhaling it in the form of springs. The springs are breathing holes, passageways from the mesa's surface to Paatuuwaqatsi, the sacred water world below.
Out here on the Hopi Reservation, high atop the Colorado Plateau in northern Arizona, Don Hopey was a long way from his Pittsburgh home, where he is the environment reporter for the Post-Gazette. Here, he was a student, and Masayesva was his teacher for the evening.
As president of the Black Mesa Trust, Masayesva heads an organization whose mission is to "safeguard, preserve and honor the land and water of Black Mesa." The trust was formed in 1999 by the Hopi people in response to the damage that extensive water withdrawals by the Peabody Coal Company have caused to the Navajo Aquifer beneath Hopi and Navajo lands on the mesa. For nearly 30 years Peabody had been pumping 3.3 million gallons of water a day for its coal slurry operation, causing wells and washes to run dry and ancient springs to vanish, threatening the life and culture of the mesa's inhabitants.
While the Black Mesa Trust relies also on Western science and technology to educate people about environmental impacts, traditional Hopi stories are part of the truth the Trust seeks to impart. For Hopey and the others gathered round the fire, there was power in such poetry.
"It was a magical experience," Hopey said, recalling that night.
As a Ted Scripps Fellow, Hopey visited Black Mesa as part of an 8-day trip around the Colorado Plateau that he and two other fellows participated in during spring break at the University of Colorado. The field tour was a class unlike any other: officially titled Seminar in Advanced Natural Resource Law, the course covered some 2,000 miles of desert, canyon, mountain and mesa while educating students about a range of issues including water, energy, grazing, mining and tribal concerns.
"It was the absolute highlight of the fellowship," said Bebe Crouse, previously National Public Radio's environment editor in Washington, D.C., a position that included a focus on the West.
"No question," Hopey agreed.
Greg Stahl, on leave from the Idaho Mountain Express in Sun Valley where he is the public land and environment reporter, rounded out the Scripps Fellows contingent. The fellows joined 13 CU law students and Professor Charles Wilkinson for the grand high-country loop that took them to Durango, Mexican Hat, Lake Powell, Cedar Mesa, Window Rock, the Grand Canyon, Paria Plateau and Jackass Canyon before returning to Boulder.
Wilkinson, who is a Distinguished Professor of Law at CU and an expert on natural resource and public lands issues, has been leading the field seminar for ____ years.
Wilkinson himself is nearly as charismatic a draw as the Plateau's enticing landscapes, according to his students. Typically found in jeans and cowboy boots, admired for his integrity and beloved for his sharp good humor, Wilkinson is the antithesis of the uptight lawyer. His lectures are more captivating narrative than legalese, and the wide-open spaces of the Plateau are a suitably appropriate setting for his teaching.
"Charles Wilkinson's field classes are legendary," said Crouse, who had heard of the professor before arriving at CU to begin her fellowship.
Like Crouse, Hopey was impressed with past fellows' recommendations of his introductory course on natural resources law. After taking that class with her and Stahl during the fall semester, he jumped at the chance to visit the Plateau with Wilkinson.
"He's someone who has a reputation and knowledge of this area that's unparalleled," Hopey said. "Every day on this field tour he gave us these gifts of expertise – from meetings with tribal leaders to out-of-the-way places like Jackass Canyon where tourists never go…His enthusiasm for the subject is infectious."
"He's so completely passionate about this place," said Crouse.
For Stahl, study in the field brought issues alive in a way that doesn't happen in the confines of a classroom.
"There's nothing like cementing textbook reading by seeing what's happening on the ground, " said Stahl. "I can't overstate how much the trip helped me more fully understand the issues we discussed in the seminar."
"It makes everything more real," Crouse agreed, who was able to see places she had assigned stories on yet had never been to, such as Black Mesa and the Navajo Reservation.
Stahl found the camaraderie with the other students equally absorbing. "The classroom atmosphere is sometimes stifling, and it was really nice to get to know people on a more personal level. And that, of course, leads to a freer exchange of ideas."
Given the logistics of the trip, it was inevitable the students would get to know one another well. The group of 17 drove together from Boulder in Wilkinson's SUV, a pick-up truck and several Subarus, staying en route at motels where they sometimes had to share beds, given tight space and a tight budget.
While some of the time they were inside listening to PowerPoint presentations by officials, most of the learning took place outdoors amid the remarkable geological and cultural features of the Plateau.
A moving experience for Crouse was exploring Moon House on Utah's remote Cedar Mesa. The group walked in to the ancient Puebloan ruin with archaeologists and a BLM administrator, and it was "as if we'd discovered it," she said.
"It was a spectacularly beautiful place, even without the ruins," said Crouse, describing the water that had spilled down the face of the slick rock and frozen, leaving icy waterfalls on the stone walls. "It was a really magical, spiritual feeling in there."
The fellows also reveled in hikes up Utah's Dirty Devil River and into Jackass Canyon, which were no small adventures.
The group's guide from the Glen Canyon Institute said, "We're gonna take this little hike – your feet might get a little wet," Crouse said, describing the Dirty Devil trip. They ended up forging their way upstream, pushing against the current, the water above their knees. The reward was an excursion into a maze of swirling slickrock and crenellated canyon walls.
Jackass Canyon was equally dramatic.
Hopey recounted the descent, accompanied by a learned naturalist, into the narrow slot canyon that plummets to the Colorado River on the floor of the Grand Canyon below.
"We had to negotiate these huge rocks that had tumbled down between the canyon walls, which were 150 to 200 feet high."
Stahl reflected that "while the educational parts of the trip were enlightening," it was during such recreational outings that the group really bonded, tossing ideas around in a casual atmosphere while sharing the majesty of the Plateau's natural marvels.
All three fellows concurred that the field tour provided experiences that will transform them as journalists.
Stahl, who is returning to Idaho, comes away with deeper insight into the resource and tribal issues that comprise a fair portion of his beat. There are implications from the Southern Ute water rights issues he studied on the trip, including the massive Animas La Plata dam project, that are significant for his coverage of the Nez Perce and Shoshone-Bannock reservations.
Crouse, too, said she understands "a lot more of the complexities of tribal issues" as a result of her exposure to Wilkinson's classes and the in-person meetings with tribal leaders during the tour.
Especially with regard to water and energy issues, "the tribes are players now," said Hopey. "The energy resources they have on the reservations has given them the power to be players," and that adds a whole new layer in need of understanding, the fellows have come to recognize.
"It's hard to get really good, deep coverage" of the tribes, said Crouse, who appreciates the challenges created by the "cultural divide." "It's a very delicate, difficult little dance," she said, acknowledging she is now more empathetic to reporters who are trying to cover tribal issues.
She also found the field tour helpful context for her fellowship project, a study of the future of ranching in the West. While her focus has been Montana, Wyoming, Oregon and Washington, she said it was illuminating to "go down and look at the places where they are trying to graze cattle" in the Southwest, where water is actually piped in to sustain the herds.
For Hopey, the exposure to mining issues was most relevant. In Pittsburgh, he is far removed from many Western concerns such as grazing permits and arcane water law, but coal mining in particular is a big story in western Pennsylvania.
"My mining stuff is going to be very much impacted" by the fellowship, Hopey said. He is currently working on a coal mining story that takes off from Vernon's campfire oration, discussing the recent shutdown of the Mojave generating plant and resulting closure of Peabody's Black Mesa Mine.
And there were other unexpected connections on the Colorado Plateau with Hopey's life back in Pittsburgh. As the students were entering the Navajo Council Chambers for a presentation, he spotted a guy with two long braids who happened to be wearing a Steelers tie. Instant bond. Hopey discovered that the fellow fan, a Navajo named Frank Seanez, grew up in Pittsburgh and was now an attorney for the Navajo Nation, representing the tribe from its headquarters in Window Rock.
On the Colorado Plateau, modernity is interwoven with timelessness. Science complements myth in a quest to preserve natural resources and ancient ways of life. Policy both protects, and potentially threatens, vulnerable landscapes. These and other lessons the Fellows learned in their sojourn through the pink sandstone and cobalt skies of this vast high desert. While the land may have appeared parched and tormented, beneath their feet streams breathed, and springs bubbled sacred secrets to the surface.
On a cool March night atop Black Mesa, a fire crackled against the dark sky. To a circle of rapt listeners, Vernon Masayesva recounted Hopi legends while his guests ate the thin, parchment-like bread traditionally served to visitors, made from blue corn and soot. Every so often his cousin Jerry would stir the fire, sending sparks swirling up around Vernon's head, rising toward the stars above.
The mesa, the guests learned, is the center of the earth for the Hopi people who have lived there for hundreds of years. Beneath it lies a breathing aquifer, drawing in rain and snow and exhaling it in the form of springs. The springs are breathing holes, passageways from the mesa's surface to Paatuuwaqatsi, the sacred water world below.
Out here on the Hopi Reservation, high atop the Colorado Plateau in northern Arizona, Don Hopey was a long way from his Pittsburgh home, where he is the environment reporter for the Post-Gazette. Here, he was a student, and Masayesva was his teacher for the evening.
 |
| Don Hopey in Jackass Canyon (Photo/Greg Stahl) |
As president of the Black Mesa Trust, Masayesva heads an organization whose mission is to "safeguard, preserve and honor the land and water of Black Mesa." The trust was formed in 1999 by the Hopi people in response to the damage that extensive water withdrawals by the Peabody Coal Company have caused to the Navajo Aquifer beneath Hopi and Navajo lands on the mesa. For nearly 30 years Peabody had been pumping 3.3 million gallons of water a day for its coal slurry operation, causing wells and washes to run dry and ancient springs to vanish, threatening the life and culture of the mesa's inhabitants.
While the Black Mesa Trust relies also on Western science and technology to educate people about environmental impacts, traditional Hopi stories are part of the truth the Trust seeks to impart. For Hopey and the others gathered round the fire, there was power in such poetry.
"It was a magical experience," Hopey said, recalling that night.
As a Ted Scripps Fellow, Hopey visited Black Mesa as part of an 8-day trip around the Colorado Plateau that he and two other fellows participated in during spring break at the University of Colorado. The field tour was a class unlike any other: officially titled Seminar in Advanced Natural Resource Law, the course covered some 2,000 miles of desert, canyon, mountain and mesa while educating students about a range of issues including water, energy, grazing, mining and tribal concerns.
"It was the absolute highlight of the fellowship," said Bebe Crouse, previously National Public Radio's environment editor in Washington, D.C., a position that included a focus on the West.
"No question," Hopey agreed.
 |
| Bebe Crouse captures the sounds of the high desert (Photo/Greg Stahl) |
Greg Stahl, on leave from the Idaho Mountain Express in Sun Valley where he is the public land and environment reporter, rounded out the Scripps Fellows contingent. The fellows joined 13 CU law students and Professor Charles Wilkinson for the grand high-country loop that took them to Durango, Mexican Hat, Lake Powell, Cedar Mesa, Window Rock, the Grand Canyon, Paria Plateau and Jackass Canyon before returning to Boulder.
 |
| Greg Stahl surveys the Colorado Plateau |
Wilkinson, who is a Distinguished Professor of Law at CU and an expert on natural resource and public lands issues, has been leading the field seminar for ____ years.
Wilkinson himself is nearly as charismatic a draw as the Plateau's enticing landscapes, according to his students. Typically found in jeans and cowboy boots, admired for his integrity and beloved for his sharp good humor, Wilkinson is the antithesis of the uptight lawyer. His lectures are more captivating narrative than legalese, and the wide-open spaces of the Plateau are a suitably appropriate setting for his teaching.
"Charles Wilkinson's field classes are legendary," said Crouse, who had heard of the professor before arriving at CU to begin her fellowship.
Like Crouse, Hopey was impressed with past fellows' recommendations of his introductory course on natural resources law. After taking that class with her and Stahl during the fall semester, he jumped at the chance to visit the Plateau with Wilkinson.
"He's someone who has a reputation and knowledge of this area that's unparalleled," Hopey said. "Every day on this field tour he gave us these gifts of expertise – from meetings with tribal leaders to out-of-the-way places like Jackass Canyon where tourists never go…His enthusiasm for the subject is infectious."
"He's so completely passionate about this place," said Crouse.
For Stahl, study in the field brought issues alive in a way that doesn't happen in the confines of a classroom.
"There's nothing like cementing textbook reading by seeing what's happening on the ground, " said Stahl. "I can't overstate how much the trip helped me more fully understand the issues we discussed in the seminar."
"It makes everything more real," Crouse agreed, who was able to see places she had assigned stories on yet had never been to, such as Black Mesa and the Navajo Reservation.
Stahl found the camaraderie with the other students equally absorbing. "The classroom atmosphere is sometimes stifling, and it was really nice to get to know people on a more personal level. And that, of course, leads to a freer exchange of ideas."
Given the logistics of the trip, it was inevitable the students would get to know one another well. The group of 17 drove together from Boulder in Wilkinson's SUV, a pick-up truck and several Subarus, staying en route at motels where they sometimes had to share beds, given tight space and a tight budget.
While some of the time they were inside listening to PowerPoint presentations by officials, most of the learning took place outdoors amid the remarkable geological and cultural features of the Plateau.
A moving experience for Crouse was exploring Moon House on Utah's remote Cedar Mesa. The group walked in to the ancient Puebloan ruin with archaeologists and a BLM administrator, and it was "as if we'd discovered it," she said.
"It was a spectacularly beautiful place, even without the ruins," said Crouse, describing the water that had spilled down the face of the slick rock and frozen, leaving icy waterfalls on the stone walls. "It was a really magical, spiritual feeling in there."
The fellows also reveled in hikes up Utah's Dirty Devil River and into Jackass Canyon, which were no small adventures.
The group's guide from the Glen Canyon Institute said, "We're gonna take this little hike – your feet might get a little wet," Crouse said, describing the Dirty Devil trip. They ended up forging their way upstream, pushing against the current, the water above their knees. The reward was an excursion into a maze of swirling slickrock and crenellated canyon walls.
Jackass Canyon was equally dramatic.
Hopey recounted the descent, accompanied by a learned naturalist, into the narrow slot canyon that plummets to the Colorado River on the floor of the Grand Canyon below.
"We had to negotiate these huge rocks that had tumbled down between the canyon walls, which were 150 to 200 feet high."
Stahl reflected that "while the educational parts of the trip were enlightening," it was during such recreational outings that the group really bonded, tossing ideas around in a casual atmosphere while sharing the majesty of the Plateau's natural marvels.
All three fellows concurred that the field tour provided experiences that will transform them as journalists.
Stahl, who is returning to Idaho, comes away with deeper insight into the resource and tribal issues that comprise a fair portion of his beat. There are implications from the Southern Ute water rights issues he studied on the trip, including the massive Animas La Plata dam project, that are significant for his coverage of the Nez Perce and Shoshone-Bannock reservations.
Crouse, too, said she understands "a lot more of the complexities of tribal issues" as a result of her exposure to Wilkinson's classes and the in-person meetings with tribal leaders during the tour.
Especially with regard to water and energy issues, "the tribes are players now," said Hopey. "The energy resources they have on the reservations has given them the power to be players," and that adds a whole new layer in need of understanding, the fellows have come to recognize.
"It's hard to get really good, deep coverage" of the tribes, said Crouse, who appreciates the challenges created by the "cultural divide." "It's a very delicate, difficult little dance," she said, acknowledging she is now more empathetic to reporters who are trying to cover tribal issues.
She also found the field tour helpful context for her fellowship project, a study of the future of ranching in the West. While her focus has been Montana, Wyoming, Oregon and Washington, she said it was illuminating to "go down and look at the places where they are trying to graze cattle" in the Southwest, where water is actually piped in to sustain the herds.
For Hopey, the exposure to mining issues was most relevant. In Pittsburgh, he is far removed from many Western concerns such as grazing permits and arcane water law, but coal mining in particular is a big story in western Pennsylvania.
"My mining stuff is going to be very much impacted" by the fellowship, Hopey said. He is currently working on a coal mining story that takes off from Vernon's campfire oration, discussing the recent shutdown of the Mojave generating plant and resulting closure of Peabody's Black Mesa Mine.
And there were other unexpected connections on the Colorado Plateau with Hopey's life back in Pittsburgh. As the students were entering the Navajo Council Chambers for a presentation, he spotted a guy with two long braids who happened to be wearing a Steelers tie. Instant bond. Hopey discovered that the fellow fan, a Navajo named Frank Seanez, grew up in Pittsburgh and was now an attorney for the Navajo Nation, representing the tribe from its headquarters in Window Rock.
On the Colorado Plateau, modernity is interwoven with timelessness. Science complements myth in a quest to preserve natural resources and ancient ways of life. Policy both protects, and potentially threatens, vulnerable landscapes. These and other lessons the Fellows learned in their sojourn through the pink sandstone and cobalt skies of this vast high desert. While the land may have appeared parched and tormented, beneath their feet streams breathed, and springs bubbled sacred secrets to the surface.
Meet the 2006-07 Ted Scripps Fellows
Five journalists have been selected as 2006-07 Ted Scripps Fellows in Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
The fellowships, now in their tenth year, are hosted by the Center for Environmental Journalism and funded through a grant from the Scripps Howard Foundation. The nine-month program offers mid-career journalists an opportunity to deepen their understanding of environmental issues and policy through coursework, seminars and field trips in the region.
Meet the new Fellows:
The fellowships, now in their tenth year, are hosted by the Center for Environmental Journalism and funded through a grant from the Scripps Howard Foundation. The nine-month program offers mid-career journalists an opportunity to deepen their understanding of environmental issues and policy through coursework, seminars and field trips in the region.
Meet the new Fellows:
- Jerd Smith is an environment reporter for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver and specializes in water and drought issues. She led a team of journalists who covered the science, money, politics and ecology of water in Colorado from 2002 to 2005. The team won several awards, including the Wirth Chair Media Award for Environmental Coverage. Before working at the Rocky, Smith was the business editor at the Boulder Daily Camera, a business reporter and editor for the Denver Business Journal and a reporter and assistant editor for the Colorado Daily.
- Anne Raup is the assistant photo editor for the Anchorage Daily News. As a photographer and as part of editing teams, Raup has earned several photojournalism awards, including the University of Missouri's Best Use of Photography 2000 award. Raup has also worked as a staff photographer for the Anchorage Daily News and as the photo editor and a staff photographer for the Standard Examiner in Ogden, Utah.
- Anne Keala Kelly is a Hawaii-based freelance journalist and regular radio correspondent for Independent Native News and Free Speech Radio News. She has written for a number of print publications including the Honolulu Weekly and Indian Country Today. Her work focuses on the experiences and perspectives of native Hawaiians. Kelly was awarded the Native American Journalists Association's Best Feature Story 2005 award for her radio program "Native Hawaiians Losing Their Land."
- Leslie Dodson is a freelance television correspondent who has worked as a reporter, correspondent, anchor, on-air editor, producer and writer for a number of broadcast companies including CNBC, Reuters and CNN. She has been stationed all over the world: in Atlanta, Tokyo, London, New York and in six Latin American countries. Dobson's award-winning work has focused on international business and economic news and regularly has drawn connections between business and the environment.
- Bruce Barcott is a contributing editor for Outside magazine and regularly writes environmental and adventure features for the magazine. He is also a freelancer. He has written for publications including Harper's, Sports Illustrated, Legal Affairs and the New York Times. The Society of Environmental Journalists awarded his New York Times Magazine article "Up In Smoke" first place for Explanatory Reporting in 2005. He has worked as a staff writer and senior editor for the Seattle Weekly and as a reporter for the trade magazine Investment Dealer's Digest.
Since 1997, the Scripps Howard Foundation has provided annual grants for its fellowships at CU-Boulder, named for Ted Scripps, grandson of the founder of the E.W. Scripps Co. Ted Scripps distinguished himself as a journalist who cared about First Amendment rights and the environment.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Former Fellows Updates
David Baron (1998-1999), author of The Beast in the Garden, on mountain lion-human interaction in Colorado's Front Range, reports that Boston's PBS station, WGBH, has optioned the movie rights to the book. WGBH, which produces a third of all national public television programming including NOVA, Frontline, and American Experience, wants to produce a feature film for broadcast and theatrical release. David currently splits his time between Boulder and Boston where he oversees coverage of global health and development at the radio program The World. Last fall he traveled to Equatorial Guinea to report on malaria control and endangered monkeys. In January, David was in New York to accept a duPont-Columbia Award, broadcasting's equivalent of the Pulitzer, on behalf of The World. The prize was awarded for the show's series on the science and ethics of stem cell research globally. The series is also being recognized with a National Journalism Award for Excellence in Electronic Media/Radio, presented by the Scripps Howard Foundation at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on April 21. The foundation's press release says, "This comprehensive radio report offered a primer on stem cell research, as the interests of science, medicine, politics and religion converge and conflict in the ethical debate over their use. The four-part series examined scientific progress on the research and dramatically different attitudes and practices in China, Israel, Britain and America."
Jennifer Bowles (1998-1999) continues to cover the environment in Southern California's Inland Empire for the Riverside Press-Enterprise. Her beat has held some intriguing stories of late, including how a developer of a massive housing project dug up an old World War II fighter that crashed during a training run in 1942 and is now using the federal Superfund law to sue the Army for not completely cleaning up the munitions; and the steps Hollywood takes to avoid harming endangered wildlife while filming TV shows, commercials and movies in the California desert. A Ralph Lauren ad, for instance, appeared to be shot in the middle of a field of Joshua trees but in fact the model was standing at the edge of a parking lot at Joshua Tree National Park. And speaking of Joshua trees, Jennifer has also reported on how invasive plants are taking over the desert and threatening to change the entire ecosystem by pushing out Joshua trees and other native plants because the invaders sprout faster after fires, in turn encouraging more and larger fires.
Paula Dobbyn (1998-1999), who's still reporting for the Anchorage Daily News, has traveled far afield of Alaska lately. In November she went to Ireland to scout out graduate school programs, then to Panama in February for a winter sun break. There she visited Isla Barro Colorado, a tropical forestry research island owned by the Smithsonian Institution where "we saw tons of tropical birds as well as howler and white-faced monkeys. We also did touristy things like taking a tour boat through a couple of locks in the Panama Canal." On the way to Panama, Paula stopped off in Boulder where she stayed with CEJ co-director Len Ackland and his wife Carol for a few days, enjoying time with former Scripps fellows in the area as well as friends she met during her fellowship. Paula was engaged in November; she met her fiance during her fellowship in Boulder. They plan to spend a year in Ireland starting in August, when she will begin grad school. Paula says she is "excited about taking a year off from daily journalism and going back to school again, after a very long time away."
Sam Eaton (2004-2005), who was hired by American Public Media's Marketplace last October to head up the radio show's newly launched Sustainability Desk, was immediately sent to China to report several features ahead of the show's two weeks of live broadcasting from China. He writes that he "covered thousands of miles in a week and a half, visiting everything from gleaming innovation centers near Hong Kong and Shanghai to one of the world's most polluted cities, Taiyuan, where coal dust covers pretty much everything... the flip side of breakneck economic growth. It sure makes it nice to come home to a place like Boulder."
Dan Glick (2000-2001) will be heading to Algeria in September as a Knight International Press Fellow. He will spend 4 months working with Algerian print journalists while living in Algiers with his two kids. In the meantime, Dan continues to cover environmental issues in the West and beyond. Recent stories have appeared in National Geographic on lynx reintroduction in Colorado (January 2006), and the effects of drought on Glen Canyon in Utah (April 2006). Dan also has a piece in the current issue of Audubon on the Mexican gray wolf reintroduction on the White Mountain Apache Tribe reservation in Arizona. In April he is off to Indonesia on assignment from National Geographic to report on gold mining, part of a larger story on the subject that will appear next year.
Todd Hartman (1998-1999) is back on the environment beat full time at the Rocky Mountain News after a year-long hiatus dominated by reporting on a variety of controversies at the University of Colorado, and Homeland Security. Todd managed to get some environmental issues covered nonetheless, producing lengthy stories on conflicts over oil and gas drilling; growing interest in alternative fuels, including ethanol; growth in recycling in the Denver region; the legacy left by a massively polluted corporate hog farm; and struggles with the state's auto-emissions testing program. Todd says, "I love to hear what my fellow Scripps fellows have been up to," so keep the updates coming.
Rebecca Huntington (2001-2002) will be leaving her job as public lands reporter at the Jackson Hole News & Guide in April to begin a freelance career with an emphasis on environmental and science writing. During the past year at the News & Guide, she won first place for in-depth reporting from the Wyoming Press Association for an explanatory piece on the complex management and demands for water on the upper Snake River drainage. She also won second place in the National Newspaper Association's Better Newspaper Contest in 2005 for best breaking news story for an article about a Jackson accountant who calculated the risks of skiing in avalanche terrain in pursuit of fresh snow but ultimately died in an avalanche.
Dave Mayfield (2000-2001) is regional issues editor for the Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk where he supervises six writers, including the paper's environmental reporter. Dave and his family enjoyed a two-week vacation to Italy last summer and are looking forward to time on the coast of Maine during the summer ahead.
Kim McGuire (2003-2004), who became the environment reporter at the Denver Post not long after her fellowship ended, is engaged to the paper's regional editor, Todd Stone. Kim and Todd worked together in Arkansas before both became transplants to the Rocky Mountain West. They are planning a summer 2007 wedding in Estes Park, Colo.
Michael Milstein (1997-1998) and his wife welcomed son Daniel in November 2004. He's just begun to toddle around, Michael writes, and "he is keeping us very busy." As a Portland-based environment writer for the Oregonian, Michael continues to cover plenty of endangered species and forest issues. A big story he recently wrote on declining numbers of hunters and anglers, bringing about reduced funding for conservation, gained a lot of local interest.
Susan Moran (2001-2002) is teaching magazine writing at CU this semester, as well as keeping a freelance career going with stories in The Economist, The New York Times, 5280 magazine, Newsweek, and other publications. Susan writes mostly about the environment and business/technology, and where they often overlap. Check out her recent articles in The Economist on "The Greening of the U.S. Armed Forces" (December 2005), and a story on Rocky Flats, the former nuclear weapons production plant near Denver (Spring 2004).
Paul Tolme (2000-2001) is currently spending several weeks in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where he says it's hot, and they've got a lot of coffee. The editors of National Wildlife recently awarded Paul the Trudy Farrand and John Strohm Magazine Writing Award, an honor bestowed annually by NWF for the best writing in the magazine. Paul got the award for his article "It's the Emissions, Stupid" (April/May 2005), which highlighed strategies for combating global warming pollution. You can find a link to the article on Paul's web site, under 'environment.' Paul also published a story recently on wolverines for Defenders magazine.
Nadia White (2004-2005) is living in Missoula, Montana, where she is freelancing, working on a book about brucellosis (the subject of her fellowship project), and writing for an education think tank. She recently participated in a 10-day "Salmon Country" expedition along the coast of Oregon, sponsored by Institutes for Journalism and Natural Resources. The impact of population growth and dams on salmon was a central focus of the program, during which Nadia and other journalists met commercial fishermen, biologists, canneries folks, law professors and other parties with a stake in salmon issues. In addition to learning many details about a subject in which she had no previous expertise, Nadia writes that "the shape of the problem and how the dialog had shifted, how unlikly alliances came to be forged over time -- those broader lessons learned were also quite interesting."
Ted Wood (2001-2002) writes, "I am now an officially censored photojournalist in Wyoming!!" The project he started during his Ted Scripps Fellowship on the coal bed methane boom in Wyoming recently bore fruit, as well as notoriety, for Ted. An exhibit of his photos opened earlier this year at the gallery of the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming's Powder River basin. The show, "The New Gold Rush: Images of Coalbed Methane," which features Ted's work and that of three other photographers, was scheduled to travel to the Nicolaysen Art Museum in Casper, Wyoming's largest museum. But after pressure from the energy industry, the museum cancelled the show. This created a huge press interest, says Ted, and the effort backfired. The show is now booked two years out, and will travel throughout the Rockies and to the coasts. For more on the controversy, see the Casper Star-Tribune's article and the story from Planet Jackson Hole. Ted is headed back to Mongolia in July, where he will be putting the final touches on a second set of map/guides and postcards to promote responsible tourism in Mongolia's national parks, a project sponsored by the non-profit organization he co-founded, Conservation Ink.
Jennifer Bowles (1998-1999) continues to cover the environment in Southern California's Inland Empire for the Riverside Press-Enterprise. Her beat has held some intriguing stories of late, including how a developer of a massive housing project dug up an old World War II fighter that crashed during a training run in 1942 and is now using the federal Superfund law to sue the Army for not completely cleaning up the munitions; and the steps Hollywood takes to avoid harming endangered wildlife while filming TV shows, commercials and movies in the California desert. A Ralph Lauren ad, for instance, appeared to be shot in the middle of a field of Joshua trees but in fact the model was standing at the edge of a parking lot at Joshua Tree National Park. And speaking of Joshua trees, Jennifer has also reported on how invasive plants are taking over the desert and threatening to change the entire ecosystem by pushing out Joshua trees and other native plants because the invaders sprout faster after fires, in turn encouraging more and larger fires.
Paula Dobbyn (1998-1999), who's still reporting for the Anchorage Daily News, has traveled far afield of Alaska lately. In November she went to Ireland to scout out graduate school programs, then to Panama in February for a winter sun break. There she visited Isla Barro Colorado, a tropical forestry research island owned by the Smithsonian Institution where "we saw tons of tropical birds as well as howler and white-faced monkeys. We also did touristy things like taking a tour boat through a couple of locks in the Panama Canal." On the way to Panama, Paula stopped off in Boulder where she stayed with CEJ co-director Len Ackland and his wife Carol for a few days, enjoying time with former Scripps fellows in the area as well as friends she met during her fellowship. Paula was engaged in November; she met her fiance during her fellowship in Boulder. They plan to spend a year in Ireland starting in August, when she will begin grad school. Paula says she is "excited about taking a year off from daily journalism and going back to school again, after a very long time away."
Sam Eaton (2004-2005), who was hired by American Public Media's Marketplace last October to head up the radio show's newly launched Sustainability Desk, was immediately sent to China to report several features ahead of the show's two weeks of live broadcasting from China. He writes that he "covered thousands of miles in a week and a half, visiting everything from gleaming innovation centers near Hong Kong and Shanghai to one of the world's most polluted cities, Taiyuan, where coal dust covers pretty much everything... the flip side of breakneck economic growth. It sure makes it nice to come home to a place like Boulder."
Dan Glick (2000-2001) will be heading to Algeria in September as a Knight International Press Fellow. He will spend 4 months working with Algerian print journalists while living in Algiers with his two kids. In the meantime, Dan continues to cover environmental issues in the West and beyond. Recent stories have appeared in National Geographic on lynx reintroduction in Colorado (January 2006), and the effects of drought on Glen Canyon in Utah (April 2006). Dan also has a piece in the current issue of Audubon on the Mexican gray wolf reintroduction on the White Mountain Apache Tribe reservation in Arizona. In April he is off to Indonesia on assignment from National Geographic to report on gold mining, part of a larger story on the subject that will appear next year.
Todd Hartman (1998-1999) is back on the environment beat full time at the Rocky Mountain News after a year-long hiatus dominated by reporting on a variety of controversies at the University of Colorado, and Homeland Security. Todd managed to get some environmental issues covered nonetheless, producing lengthy stories on conflicts over oil and gas drilling; growing interest in alternative fuels, including ethanol; growth in recycling in the Denver region; the legacy left by a massively polluted corporate hog farm; and struggles with the state's auto-emissions testing program. Todd says, "I love to hear what my fellow Scripps fellows have been up to," so keep the updates coming.
Rebecca Huntington (2001-2002) will be leaving her job as public lands reporter at the Jackson Hole News & Guide in April to begin a freelance career with an emphasis on environmental and science writing. During the past year at the News & Guide, she won first place for in-depth reporting from the Wyoming Press Association for an explanatory piece on the complex management and demands for water on the upper Snake River drainage. She also won second place in the National Newspaper Association's Better Newspaper Contest in 2005 for best breaking news story for an article about a Jackson accountant who calculated the risks of skiing in avalanche terrain in pursuit of fresh snow but ultimately died in an avalanche.
Dave Mayfield (2000-2001) is regional issues editor for the Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk where he supervises six writers, including the paper's environmental reporter. Dave and his family enjoyed a two-week vacation to Italy last summer and are looking forward to time on the coast of Maine during the summer ahead.
Kim McGuire (2003-2004), who became the environment reporter at the Denver Post not long after her fellowship ended, is engaged to the paper's regional editor, Todd Stone. Kim and Todd worked together in Arkansas before both became transplants to the Rocky Mountain West. They are planning a summer 2007 wedding in Estes Park, Colo.
Michael Milstein (1997-1998) and his wife welcomed son Daniel in November 2004. He's just begun to toddle around, Michael writes, and "he is keeping us very busy." As a Portland-based environment writer for the Oregonian, Michael continues to cover plenty of endangered species and forest issues. A big story he recently wrote on declining numbers of hunters and anglers, bringing about reduced funding for conservation, gained a lot of local interest.
Susan Moran (2001-2002) is teaching magazine writing at CU this semester, as well as keeping a freelance career going with stories in The Economist, The New York Times, 5280 magazine, Newsweek, and other publications. Susan writes mostly about the environment and business/technology, and where they often overlap. Check out her recent articles in The Economist on "The Greening of the U.S. Armed Forces" (December 2005), and a story on Rocky Flats, the former nuclear weapons production plant near Denver (Spring 2004).
Paul Tolme (2000-2001) is currently spending several weeks in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where he says it's hot, and they've got a lot of coffee. The editors of National Wildlife recently awarded Paul the Trudy Farrand and John Strohm Magazine Writing Award, an honor bestowed annually by NWF for the best writing in the magazine. Paul got the award for his article "It's the Emissions, Stupid" (April/May 2005), which highlighed strategies for combating global warming pollution. You can find a link to the article on Paul's web site, under 'environment.' Paul also published a story recently on wolverines for Defenders magazine.
Nadia White (2004-2005) is living in Missoula, Montana, where she is freelancing, working on a book about brucellosis (the subject of her fellowship project), and writing for an education think tank. She recently participated in a 10-day "Salmon Country" expedition along the coast of Oregon, sponsored by Institutes for Journalism and Natural Resources. The impact of population growth and dams on salmon was a central focus of the program, during which Nadia and other journalists met commercial fishermen, biologists, canneries folks, law professors and other parties with a stake in salmon issues. In addition to learning many details about a subject in which she had no previous expertise, Nadia writes that "the shape of the problem and how the dialog had shifted, how unlikly alliances came to be forged over time -- those broader lessons learned were also quite interesting."
Ted Wood (2001-2002) writes, "I am now an officially censored photojournalist in Wyoming!!" The project he started during his Ted Scripps Fellowship on the coal bed methane boom in Wyoming recently bore fruit, as well as notoriety, for Ted. An exhibit of his photos opened earlier this year at the gallery of the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming's Powder River basin. The show, "The New Gold Rush: Images of Coalbed Methane," which features Ted's work and that of three other photographers, was scheduled to travel to the Nicolaysen Art Museum in Casper, Wyoming's largest museum. But after pressure from the energy industry, the museum cancelled the show. This created a huge press interest, says Ted, and the effort backfired. The show is now booked two years out, and will travel throughout the Rockies and to the coasts. For more on the controversy, see the Casper Star-Tribune's article and the story from Planet Jackson Hole. Ted is headed back to Mongolia in July, where he will be putting the final touches on a second set of map/guides and postcards to promote responsible tourism in Mongolia's national parks, a project sponsored by the non-profit organization he co-founded, Conservation Ink.
Green Building: Beginning to make dollars and sense
By Felicia Russell
Boulder's recycling and open space programs have long earned the city national recognition as a leader in the push toward environmental sustainability. These days it's making headlines in the building industry.
The Ted Scripps Fellows and CEJ staff recently took a trip downtown to the historic Citizens National Bank Building on Pearl Street for a backstage look at the green building trend. There they met with Kristi Ennis, sustainable design director for Boulder Associates, an firm that specializes in medical architecture and design.
Ennis told the Fellows about her experience working with the United States Green Building Council's LEED program, which is a point-based system for rating how environmentally-friendly a building is. Her firm designed Boulder Community Foothills Hospital, the first hospital in the nation to earn LEED Silver, which means that the hospital has earned at least half of the green points possible under the program.
To sit in with the Fellows, listen to the CEJ's first podcast.
Boulder's recycling and open space programs have long earned the city national recognition as a leader in the push toward environmental sustainability. These days it's making headlines in the building industry.
The Ted Scripps Fellows and CEJ staff recently took a trip downtown to the historic Citizens National Bank Building on Pearl Street for a backstage look at the green building trend. There they met with Kristi Ennis, sustainable design director for Boulder Associates, an firm that specializes in medical architecture and design.
 |
| A room at Boulder Community Foothills Hospital, the first hospital in the U.S. to earn LEED Silver certification (Image/ Boulder Associates). |
Ennis told the Fellows about her experience working with the United States Green Building Council's LEED program, which is a point-based system for rating how environmentally-friendly a building is. Her firm designed Boulder Community Foothills Hospital, the first hospital in the nation to earn LEED Silver, which means that the hospital has earned at least half of the green points possible under the program.
To sit in with the Fellows, listen to the CEJ's first podcast.
Saturday, October 1, 2005
Former Fellow Updates
Paula Dobbyn (1998-99) landed several awards for her series of articles in the Anchorage Daily News on a conflict of interest involving Alaska's state attorney general who resigned as a result. Her reporting was honored with a McClatchy President's Award, a Society of American Business Editors and Writers Award, a Society of Professional Journalists regional award for investigative reporting, and the Alaska Press Club's investigative reporting award. Paula hopes to spend next year in Ireland, where she wants to explore her family roots and attend graduate school. She is making an initial trip this November to check out master's programs in Creative Writing, Celtic Studies and Reconciliation Studies. She also provides foster care for an Alaska Native girl and is currently getting certified to teach yoga.
Sam Eaton (2004-05) was recently hired by Marketplace as a Senior Reporter heading up their new Global Sustainability Desk, which covers the intersection of sustainability and the economy. While the beat is global, Sam will get to stay in Boulder, where he and his wife relocated following his fellowship last year. Sam had previously been reporting for Marketplace on contract since June and has led the program's coverage of post-Katrina New Orleans' recovery efforts.
John Flesher (2002-03) now has a specialist byline with the Associated Press: AP Environmental Writer. While he still covers general assignment stories as the wire's northern Michigan correspondent, his new title, bestowed through a competitive process at AP headquarters in New York, honors John's depth in environmental coverage. A specialist title recognizes a reporter's initiative in carving out a beat in a given area and demonstrating accomplishment in that arena. John says that when his bureau chief submitted his nomination to the New York office, he emphasized the value of the Scripps Fellowship in bolstering John's environmental reporting prowess.
Daniel Glick (2000-01) stays busy covering the environment for several major magazines. His cover story on endangered species success stories appeared in the September 2005 Smithsonian, and the fall issue of Nature Conservancy featured his cover story about climate change's effects on native Alaskan cultures. National Geographic will again feature's Dan work with a piece on lynx reintroduction in the January 2006 issue.
Katy Human (2000-01) is enjoying her job as science writer at the Denver Post where she has covered many environment-related stories from climate change to naturally occurring asbestos. She and her husband Gregg are expecting baby No. 2 in March, who will join big brother Miles.
Vicki Monks (2003-04) has relocated to Oklahoma where she is working on a book about Indian Country in Oklahoma 100 years after statehood and reporting on environmental threats to Indian lands. She won a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism to continue a series of radio stories on that subject for NPR's Living on Earth program. (For more on Vicki's SEJ award for her Living on Earth reporting, see the feature story in this issue of CEJ News/Views.) She is currently investigating the situation in Tar Creek, Okla., where Indian children have blood lead levels four times the national average, far above levels known to cause brain damage. Abandoned lead and zinc mines in northeastern Oklahoma continue to contaminate Quapaw tribal lands in the region, despite designation as a priority Superfund site 20 years ago, Vicki reports. She is also teaching broadcast writing as an adjunct instructor at the University of Oklahoma's Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communications.
Susan Moran (2001-02) has been living in Boulder since her fellowship ended, where she balances freelancing and teaching journalism classes at CU. After spending a year and a half as a full-time instructor, Susan is teaching less in order to write more, mostly on the intersection of environment, business, public health and technology issues. Her most recent articles have appeared in The Economist, Newsweek, 5280, and Inc. magazines. In June 2005, Susan married Tom McKinnon in an outdoor ceremony atop Flagstaff Mountain in the Boulder foothills.
Rachel Odell (2004-05) got bit by the Boulder bug following her fellowship last year and is now an associate editor at Skiing magazine here. Her fellowship project story on whether dams on the Snake River represent a "taking" of tribal fishing rights was published Sept. 5, 2005 in High Country News. Rachel just bought a house in Boulder and plans to spend the winter skiing, writing and learning more about editing. Her new e-mail address is rachel.odell@time4.com.
Paul Tolme (2000-01) is a very active freelance magazine writer specializing in the environment, wildlife, skiing, outdoor adventure and travel. He is a contributing writer at SKI magazine and a frequent contributor to Newsweek, for whom he covers breaking national news from the Rockies. He writes regularly for National Wildlife and his stories have also appeared in Audubon, Defenders of Wildlife, Hooked on the Outdoors, FAIR, and Mountain Gazette. For links to Paul's many articles ranging from the effects of mercury poisoning on wildlife to threatened flowering plants affected by climate change, visit Paul's website. Paul lives in the small mountain town of Nederland in Colorado's Front Range, where he spends a lot of time on his mountain bike when he isn't reporting.
Nadia White (2004-05) has moved to Missoula, Montana, where she is writing a book about brucellosis, the subject of her fellowship project last year. She participated in October in a 10-day tour of "Salmon Country" for reporters, sponsored by the Institutes on Journalism and Natural Resources, headed by Ted Scripps Fellowship board member Frank Allen. Traveling through coastal and mountain areas in the Pacific Northwest, White studied the links between salmon, habitat and forestry, and says, "I learned a ton." Her new e-mail address is white_nadia@hotmail.com.
David Wilson (2002-03) updates us with news that he has "crossed over to the dark side": he's nearly through his first semester of law school at the University of Colorado. He blames his year as a Scripps Fellow for the career transition, when he took natural resources law classes at CU and was impacted by Professor Charles Wilkinson. While he says he loves law school, he adds, "I'll always be a journalist, regardless of my other occupations. Hopefully, this education will enhance my reporting skills." He's also excited about the opportunity to "feed, clothe and house myself," which he admits was difficult as a freelance radio producer.
Sam Eaton (2004-05) was recently hired by Marketplace as a Senior Reporter heading up their new Global Sustainability Desk, which covers the intersection of sustainability and the economy. While the beat is global, Sam will get to stay in Boulder, where he and his wife relocated following his fellowship last year. Sam had previously been reporting for Marketplace on contract since June and has led the program's coverage of post-Katrina New Orleans' recovery efforts.
John Flesher (2002-03) now has a specialist byline with the Associated Press: AP Environmental Writer. While he still covers general assignment stories as the wire's northern Michigan correspondent, his new title, bestowed through a competitive process at AP headquarters in New York, honors John's depth in environmental coverage. A specialist title recognizes a reporter's initiative in carving out a beat in a given area and demonstrating accomplishment in that arena. John says that when his bureau chief submitted his nomination to the New York office, he emphasized the value of the Scripps Fellowship in bolstering John's environmental reporting prowess.
Daniel Glick (2000-01) stays busy covering the environment for several major magazines. His cover story on endangered species success stories appeared in the September 2005 Smithsonian, and the fall issue of Nature Conservancy featured his cover story about climate change's effects on native Alaskan cultures. National Geographic will again feature's Dan work with a piece on lynx reintroduction in the January 2006 issue.
Katy Human (2000-01) is enjoying her job as science writer at the Denver Post where she has covered many environment-related stories from climate change to naturally occurring asbestos. She and her husband Gregg are expecting baby No. 2 in March, who will join big brother Miles.
Vicki Monks (2003-04) has relocated to Oklahoma where she is working on a book about Indian Country in Oklahoma 100 years after statehood and reporting on environmental threats to Indian lands. She won a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism to continue a series of radio stories on that subject for NPR's Living on Earth program. (For more on Vicki's SEJ award for her Living on Earth reporting, see the feature story in this issue of CEJ News/Views.) She is currently investigating the situation in Tar Creek, Okla., where Indian children have blood lead levels four times the national average, far above levels known to cause brain damage. Abandoned lead and zinc mines in northeastern Oklahoma continue to contaminate Quapaw tribal lands in the region, despite designation as a priority Superfund site 20 years ago, Vicki reports. She is also teaching broadcast writing as an adjunct instructor at the University of Oklahoma's Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communications.
Susan Moran (2001-02) has been living in Boulder since her fellowship ended, where she balances freelancing and teaching journalism classes at CU. After spending a year and a half as a full-time instructor, Susan is teaching less in order to write more, mostly on the intersection of environment, business, public health and technology issues. Her most recent articles have appeared in The Economist, Newsweek, 5280, and Inc. magazines. In June 2005, Susan married Tom McKinnon in an outdoor ceremony atop Flagstaff Mountain in the Boulder foothills.
Rachel Odell (2004-05) got bit by the Boulder bug following her fellowship last year and is now an associate editor at Skiing magazine here. Her fellowship project story on whether dams on the Snake River represent a "taking" of tribal fishing rights was published Sept. 5, 2005 in High Country News. Rachel just bought a house in Boulder and plans to spend the winter skiing, writing and learning more about editing. Her new e-mail address is rachel.odell@time4.com.
Paul Tolme (2000-01) is a very active freelance magazine writer specializing in the environment, wildlife, skiing, outdoor adventure and travel. He is a contributing writer at SKI magazine and a frequent contributor to Newsweek, for whom he covers breaking national news from the Rockies. He writes regularly for National Wildlife and his stories have also appeared in Audubon, Defenders of Wildlife, Hooked on the Outdoors, FAIR, and Mountain Gazette. For links to Paul's many articles ranging from the effects of mercury poisoning on wildlife to threatened flowering plants affected by climate change, visit Paul's website. Paul lives in the small mountain town of Nederland in Colorado's Front Range, where he spends a lot of time on his mountain bike when he isn't reporting.
Nadia White (2004-05) has moved to Missoula, Montana, where she is writing a book about brucellosis, the subject of her fellowship project last year. She participated in October in a 10-day tour of "Salmon Country" for reporters, sponsored by the Institutes on Journalism and Natural Resources, headed by Ted Scripps Fellowship board member Frank Allen. Traveling through coastal and mountain areas in the Pacific Northwest, White studied the links between salmon, habitat and forestry, and says, "I learned a ton." Her new e-mail address is white_nadia@hotmail.com.
David Wilson (2002-03) updates us with news that he has "crossed over to the dark side": he's nearly through his first semester of law school at the University of Colorado. He blames his year as a Scripps Fellow for the career transition, when he took natural resources law classes at CU and was impacted by Professor Charles Wilkinson. While he says he loves law school, he adds, "I'll always be a journalist, regardless of my other occupations. Hopefully, this education will enhance my reporting skills." He's also excited about the opportunity to "feed, clothe and house myself," which he admits was difficult as a freelance radio producer.
Win, Place and Show: Former Ted Scripps Fellows Capture Top Environmental Reporting Awards
By Wendy Worrall Redal
Former Ted Scripps Fellow Vicki Monks took first-place honors in the
largest environmental journalism contest in North America. Monks won the
top prize for Outstanding Radio Reporting, Large Market from the Society of Environmental Journalists for her National Public Radio story on industrial contamination of Indian lands in Oklahoma.
The story aired earlier this year on the NPR program "Living On Earth."
SEJ announced the award winners Sept. 28 during the organization's annual conference
held this year in Austin, Texas. The contest attracted 240 entries nationwide. The first- place award included a trophy and $1,000 prize.
Two other former Fellows were also honored at the ceremony at Austin's historic Driskill Hotel: Daniel Glick was part of a National Geographic magazine reporting team that took second place in the Outstanding Explanatory Reporting, Print category for its package of stories on global climate change, while Daniel Grossman garnered third place with reporter John Rudolph for their American RadioWorks story, "Climate of Uncertainty," in the same category that Monks won.
Monks' prize-winning story examined contamination from a carbon black production facility near Ponca City, Okla. and the failure of Oklahoma's Department of Environmental Quality to control the pollution. Judges called the story "a riveting account of how industrial pollution has affected Native Americans in Oklahoma."
In her acceptance speech at the awards ceremony, Monks encouraged other journalists to pursue environmental stories in Indian country. "You can find a wealth of stories that are largely unreported," she told the assembled reporters and editors.
Monks left Santa Fe, NM this past summer to work on a book about Indian Country in Oklahoma one hundred years after statehood. The Fund for Investigative Journalism is backing her continuing project on environmental threats to Indian lands with a $6,000 research grant. She is also teaching broadcasting this semester as an adjunct instructor at the University of Oklahoma's Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communications.
Both Glick and Grossman continue to cover climate change. Glick traveled to Kaktovik, Alaska in October to track the effects of a warming climate on polar bears for a chapter he is writing in an upcoming book for The Mountaineers press.
Former Ted Scripps Fellow Vicki Monks took first-place honors in the
largest environmental journalism contest in North America. Monks won the
top prize for Outstanding Radio Reporting, Large Market from the Society of Environmental Journalists for her National Public Radio story on industrial contamination of Indian lands in Oklahoma.
The story aired earlier this year on the NPR program "Living On Earth."
SEJ announced the award winners Sept. 28 during the organization's annual conference
held this year in Austin, Texas. The contest attracted 240 entries nationwide. The first- place award included a trophy and $1,000 prize.
Two other former Fellows were also honored at the ceremony at Austin's historic Driskill Hotel: Daniel Glick was part of a National Geographic magazine reporting team that took second place in the Outstanding Explanatory Reporting, Print category for its package of stories on global climate change, while Daniel Grossman garnered third place with reporter John Rudolph for their American RadioWorks story, "Climate of Uncertainty," in the same category that Monks won.
 |
| Contamination from the Continental Carbon plant near Ponca City, Okla., is so severe that pure white sheep have turned black (Photo/Vicki Monks) |
Monks' prize-winning story examined contamination from a carbon black production facility near Ponca City, Okla. and the failure of Oklahoma's Department of Environmental Quality to control the pollution. Judges called the story "a riveting account of how industrial pollution has affected Native Americans in Oklahoma."
 |
| At the SEJ awards ceremony, Vicki Monks encouraged reporters and editors to pursue environmental stories in Indian Country |
In her acceptance speech at the awards ceremony, Monks encouraged other journalists to pursue environmental stories in Indian country. "You can find a wealth of stories that are largely unreported," she told the assembled reporters and editors.
Monks left Santa Fe, NM this past summer to work on a book about Indian Country in Oklahoma one hundred years after statehood. The Fund for Investigative Journalism is backing her continuing project on environmental threats to Indian lands with a $6,000 research grant. She is also teaching broadcasting this semester as an adjunct instructor at the University of Oklahoma's Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communications.
Both Glick and Grossman continue to cover climate change. Glick traveled to Kaktovik, Alaska in October to track the effects of a warming climate on polar bears for a chapter he is writing in an upcoming book for The Mountaineers press.
 |
| Daniel Glick and friend stand atop a melting Arctic ice pack |
Friday, April 1, 2005
Scripps Fellows Updates
Lisa Busch in March received the environment award in the Volvo for Life competition for her work to mend rifts between environmentalists and former pulp mill workers in Sitka, Alaska. She credits her reporting skills for her success in starting Sitka Trail Works, an organization that gives former mill workers new jobs on trail building crews. She’s now president of the organization, which has built over $2 million worth of trails. Details of her work are published online at:
http://www.volvoforlifeawards.com/cgi-bin/iowa/english/heros/hero2004/5380.html.
Carie Call, who lives on Pine Island off Florida’s central west coast, has taken a position as an environmental planner with the Lee County Department of Environmental Sciences. After 20 years in journalism, she says, “I wanted to do more to help instead of just writing about other people helping, and telling other people what they should be doing.” She and her husband, Barry, are still wrangling with banks and insurance companies to get funds to repair the extensive damage to their home sustained during Florida’s brutal 2004 hurricane season. The island was battered by four separate storms. They’ve made progress with helping to restore some of the island’s lush flora, however, taking advantage of fine spring weather to plant lavender, geraniums, passion flowers, and mango, avocado, bottle brush and live oak trees. Contact Carie at cobenchain@comcast.net.
John Flesher just had an article published in a Michigan regional magazine on the theme of environment and religion, a subject he pursued during his fellowship year. Last fall he also wrote a series of articles for the Associated Press on water use in the Great Lakes region, including whether Great Lakes water could ever be diverted to the West.
Dan Grossman won the Media Award of the American Institute of Biological Sciences and first prize in the in-depth radio reporting category in the Society of Environmental Journalist’s Annual Awards for Reporting on the Environment competition. Both awards were for “The Penguin Barometer,” a Radio Netherlands documentary on the impact of climate change on ecosystems. Also check out his most recent endeavor, a multi-media website on people and nature in Madagascar, at www.wbur.org/special/madagascar.
Todd Hartman and Rocky Mountain News colleague Jerd Smith published a 5-part series called "The Last Drop," which detailed the damage Colorado's thirsty Front Range is causing to mountain streams on the Western Slope. The project won a first place award from the American Planning Association and was co-winner of the Wirth Chair in Environmental and Community Development Policy award in the print media category.
John Kotlowski has turned his camera towards the National Parks, seeking to document Americans' relationship with their parks. He writes: “I am looking for the people in these photographs, or signs of them—the parking lots, the cars, the trash, the cameras, the crowds, the umbrellas, and so on." In recent months, his project has taken him to Arches National Park, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, and the Great Smoky Mountains. John is also working on a project in Poland, where he is using photography, film and video to document traditional farming villages and the residents' way of life, which persists against the backdrop of corporate farming.
http://www.volvoforlifeawards.com/cgi-bin/iowa/english/heros/hero2004/5380.html.
Carie Call, who lives on Pine Island off Florida’s central west coast, has taken a position as an environmental planner with the Lee County Department of Environmental Sciences. After 20 years in journalism, she says, “I wanted to do more to help instead of just writing about other people helping, and telling other people what they should be doing.” She and her husband, Barry, are still wrangling with banks and insurance companies to get funds to repair the extensive damage to their home sustained during Florida’s brutal 2004 hurricane season. The island was battered by four separate storms. They’ve made progress with helping to restore some of the island’s lush flora, however, taking advantage of fine spring weather to plant lavender, geraniums, passion flowers, and mango, avocado, bottle brush and live oak trees. Contact Carie at cobenchain@comcast.net.
John Flesher just had an article published in a Michigan regional magazine on the theme of environment and religion, a subject he pursued during his fellowship year. Last fall he also wrote a series of articles for the Associated Press on water use in the Great Lakes region, including whether Great Lakes water could ever be diverted to the West.
Dan Grossman won the Media Award of the American Institute of Biological Sciences and first prize in the in-depth radio reporting category in the Society of Environmental Journalist’s Annual Awards for Reporting on the Environment competition. Both awards were for “The Penguin Barometer,” a Radio Netherlands documentary on the impact of climate change on ecosystems. Also check out his most recent endeavor, a multi-media website on people and nature in Madagascar, at www.wbur.org/special/madagascar.
Todd Hartman and Rocky Mountain News colleague Jerd Smith published a 5-part series called "The Last Drop," which detailed the damage Colorado's thirsty Front Range is causing to mountain streams on the Western Slope. The project won a first place award from the American Planning Association and was co-winner of the Wirth Chair in Environmental and Community Development Policy award in the print media category.
John Kotlowski has turned his camera towards the National Parks, seeking to document Americans' relationship with their parks. He writes: “I am looking for the people in these photographs, or signs of them—the parking lots, the cars, the trash, the cameras, the crowds, the umbrellas, and so on." In recent months, his project has taken him to Arches National Park, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, and the Great Smoky Mountains. John is also working on a project in Poland, where he is using photography, film and video to document traditional farming villages and the residents' way of life, which persists against the backdrop of corporate farming.
Meet the 2005-06 Ted Scripps Fellows
Five journalists have been selected as 2005-06 Ted Scripps Fellows in Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
The fellowships are hosted by the Center for Environmental Journalism and funded through a grant from the Scripps Howard Foundation. The nine-month program offers mid-career journalists an opportunity to deepen their understanding of environmental issues and policy through coursework, seminars and field trips in the region.
The new fellows include:
Since 1997, the Scripps Howard Foundation has provided annual grants for its fellowships at CU-Boulder, named for Ted Scripps, grandson of the founder of the E.W. Scripps Co. Ted Scripps distinguished himself as a journalist who cared about First Amendment rights and the environment.
The fellowships are hosted by the Center for Environmental Journalism and funded through a grant from the Scripps Howard Foundation. The nine-month program offers mid-career journalists an opportunity to deepen their understanding of environmental issues and policy through coursework, seminars and field trips in the region.
The new fellows include:
- Bebe Crouse, environment editor for National Public Radio in Washington, D.C. She oversees NPR's environmental and general news coverage in 12 western states and edits staff and freelance environment stories from other regions. Crouse's career includes five years at CBS News where she wrote daily news analysis and commentary for Dan Rather and produced other feature and live segments for the network. She also spent three years as a Mexico City-based independent producer and reporter. Among her journalism honors are the 2003 National Headliner Award for Investigative Reporting for a team-produced look at malfeasance within the U.S. Border Patrol and the 2001 Peabody Award for NPR's team coverage of 9/11. Crouse earned a bachelor's degree in environmental studies and natural science from the University of California, Santa Cruz and a master's certificate in international journalism from the University of Southern California/El Colegio de Mexico in Mexico City. Her fellowship project involves developing a feasibility plan and outline for a new public radio program focused on environmental issues.
- Don Hopey is an environment reporter at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. His writing displays a mix of local, state and national investigative stories and issue-oriented outdoor features. He has produced articles about pollution caused by the nation's hazardous waste incinerators, shortcomings in Pennsylvania's regulation of longwall coal mining, and an 80-mile canoe trip through the Wild and Scenic sections of the Allegheny River. Hopey has traveled to Central Europe to research and report about a range of environmental problems. His work has been recognized by a number of local and regional awards. He holds a bachelor's degree in political science from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and studied law at Duquesne University and journalism at Pennsylvania State University. Hopey's independent project will focus on the health and environmental effects of coal-burning power plants.
- Jeff Johnson is senior editor for Chemical and Engineering News in Washington, D.C. He covers energy, the environment, science policy, chemical accidents and economics. Topics he has written about include air emissions and the Clean Air Act, mercury pollution, renewable energy from the ocean, cleanups at former Department of Energy nuclear weapons plants and "clean coal." Previously, Johnson worked for Environmental Science & Technology, a monthly environmental science magazine, and the Daily Environment Reporter, a Bureau of National Affairs publication where he covered the environmental activities of Congress. He earned a BS in industrial engineering at California State Polytechnic University and a master's in journalism at the University of Oregon. He intends to write a series of articles on energy and the environment for his fellowship project.
- Greg Stahl is the senior reporter at the Idaho Mountain Express in Ketchum, Idaho. Working in rural Idaho, Stahl has covered public land issues such as user conflicts between backcountry skiers and snowmobilers, resource issues such as forest health, and endangered species issues including gray wolf reintroduction. His co-authored series examining a wilderness area designation for the state's Boulder and White Cloud mountains won the 2004 National Newspaper Association's Better Newspaper Contest in the investigative reporting category. In addition to reporting, Stahl coordinates teams of reporters and photographers working on in-depth articles for the twice-weekly newspaper. Previously, his freelance articles ran in publications such as High Country News and Sun Valley Art magazine. He earned a bachelor's degree in English at Western State College in Gunnison, Colo. His professional project will examine water shortage issues and legislative action involving the Snake River and Snake Plain Aquifer.
- Andrea Welsh is a correspondent for Dow Jones Newswires in Sao Paulo, Brazil. She writes about trends in Brazil's beverage, auto, mining, and steel sectors. Welsh led the way in writing about Brazil's appeal as a global steel-making center and in covering the country's beer sector during the takeover of a local brewer by Belgium's Interbrew. She previously worked as Latin America reporter for Petroleum Argus, a Houston-based trade publication and covered the oil workers' strikes in Venezuela and the coup against President Hugo Chavez. Prior to that she served as correspondent for Dow Jones Newswires in Santiago, Chile and wrote about everything from capital market reforms to trade talks with the United States. Welsh holds a bachelor's degree in communications from Temple University in Philadelphia and a master's in Latin American studies and communications from the University of Texas at Austin. Her professional project will focus on small-scale sustainable economic projects in the Amazon.
Since 1997, the Scripps Howard Foundation has provided annual grants for its fellowships at CU-Boulder, named for Ted Scripps, grandson of the founder of the E.W. Scripps Co. Ted Scripps distinguished himself as a journalist who cared about First Amendment rights and the environment.
Journey into the Earth: Scripps Fellows Tour World's Largest Molybdenum Mine
By Wendy Worrall Redal
More than a half-mile below the surface of Red Mountain in the Colorado Rockies, it's a typical workday for Justin Whetton. He spends most of his 12-hour shift operating a gigantic loader inside a dark tunnel, scooping over 300 buckets of rock a day, hauling it from one shaft and dumping it down another where it falls into huge trucks that take it to a powerful underground crusher.
Whetton makes around $20 an hour for his labor, but each scoop of ore, weighing 10 or 11 tons, is worth $1,000. The value comes from a metal inside the rock, called molybdenum. About 44 lbs. of "moly," as it's known in the industry, is contained in each bucket Whetton moves at the Henderson Mine.
The mine, located below Berthoud Pass near Empire, Colo., is the largest primary molybdenum source in the world. Its owner, Climax Molybdenum, is a subsidiary of Phelps Dodge Corporation, the world's second-largest producer of molybdenum and copper after Codelco, Chile's state-owned mining company. Last year Phelps Dodge produced about 9 percent of the world's moly supply, some 28 million pounds, most of it coming out of Henderson's vast lode.
The Ted Scripps Fellows got a close-up look at a major underground mining operation when they visited Henderson on April 22. Donning hard hats, headlamps, safety goggles and a self-rescuing device designed to provide breathable air in the event of a mine emergency, the fellows and CEJ staff descended some 3,000 feet in a shaft elevator into the bowels of Red Mountain.
Here, as if inside a giant subterranean maze, they boarded tractors that negotiated a warren of tunnels to give them an overview of some of the world's most sophisticated hard-rock mining operations. In the process, they learned a lot about a metal called moly.
While many people have never heard of molybdenum, let alone tried to pronounce it, they have almost certainly benefited from its use. Chemical-grade moly, the pure form mined and milled at Henderson, is used for many industrial purposes. It makes pipelines more corrosion-resistant, acts as a smoke retardant for plastics, and is used in CO2 detectors, fluorescent light bulb tubes, computer heat sinks, and in the orange paint pigment bought by the U.S. Navy.
However high-grade moly is best known as a lubricant. It's used in the manufacture of lower-friction piston rings in the automotive industry, as a spray for bicycle chains, and is added to greases and oils. In Europe, where automobile oil has a higher moly content, you only need to change your car's oil every 15,000 miles, Mine Manager Kurt Keskimaki said, adding that such oil is expected before long in the U.S.
Moly is also used as a catalyst for getting rid of sulfur in petroleum refining, an important function in meeting clean-air standards. In fact, about half of the moly mined at Henderson goes to Houston where it's processed by Criterion, a division of Shell, which is a major buyer.
Production at Henderson began in 1976, following the ore body discovery in 1964. Initially found by Uranium Research and Development, or URAD, who thought it was uranium ore, it turned out to be molybdenum, an enormous deposit. Geologically, it was the perfect set of circumstances, 13 different mineralizing events that kept enriching the deposit with more layers of the purest moly in the world.
It's hard to get a handle on just how much of the mineral makes up the core of Red Mountain, but Keskimaki has the figures: "We sit on 166 million tons of moly ore, 600 million pounds of recoverable moly."
Shaft sinking commenced in 1968. Initial removal began at the 8,100-foot level, but current extraction is now at 7,210 feet. A quarter-million feet of long hole are drilled each year, using more than a million pounds of explosives. Once the ore is crushed at the bottom level of the mine, it's sent on a conveyor belt one mile up to the surface, then 14 miles further on the belt to the mill site across the mountains in the Williams Fork Valley.
Fellows and CEJ staffers marveled at the complex operation as they stood above the gyrating crusher on the mine floor, watching as 80-ton haul trucks, the biggest underground trucks in the world, dumped their load of rock into the crusher's bowl. Like a giant mortar and pestle, the device crunched the ore chunks into pieces of rock 4-8 inches in diameter, small enough to load onto the conveyor belt that whisks the ore over to the mill at about 50 mph. The process was noisy enough that the visitors were glad to have the earplugs provided, and at times the face masks necessary to cut the dust and exhaust that are inescapable amid such operations, despite mitigation efforts.
Mine ventilation is just one aspect of the Climax company's commitment to worker safety. "We move more tons of air in a day than tons of rock," said Keskimaki. That's a lot of air, since 21,300 tons of material are milled daily at Henderson.
Such complex ventilation systems are part of the reason why Henderson is Colorado's second biggest power user after Pueblo's steel mill. The mine and mill, which operate around the clock, use 47 megawatts a day for an average monthly energy bill of $1.5 million – less than half the steel mill's cost. Fellow Sam Eaton said he was "amazed at the amount of energy they use. It's mind-boggling."
The conveyor belts are also power-hungry components of the Henderson enterprise, using 11,000 hp engines to transport the ore uphill to the mill. There, it is processed by separating the moly from its granite casing. First, the host rock is ground down into particles as fine as beach sand. During the milling, water and reagents are added, the latter causing molybdenum particles to float when the slurry is mixed with air. The moly adheres to the bubbles, allowing the metal to be separated from its host. More grinding and flotation further refines the moly concentrate, which at this point resembles ultra-fine, powdery graphite, very shiny and dark gray. In its final form as it leaves the mill, the moly is concentrated to nearly 250 times what it was when it entered as incoming ore. The process doesn't end here, though: the concentrate is filtered, dried and packaged for shipment by truck to further processing plants in Iowa, England and the Netherlands.
What's left over are the slurry remains and ore tailings. These are transported to the 1,000-acre tailing area where the moly-free granite settles and the water goes through an extensive reclamation process to be reused in a closed system at the mill.
Fifteen miles away, the mine sits near the head of the Clear Creek watershed, a region of alpine meadows and crystalline streams. Dealing with industrial wastewater is thus Henderson's biggest environmental stewardship issue. Fellows got a close-up look at the company's state-of-the-art treatment plant built in 1997, which handles up to 1600 gallons per minute from the mine. A million gallons a day are pumped into the plant from underground.
Ridding the water supply of toxic levels of manganese and zinc is the primary goal of the treatment facility. Tony Lucero, Henderson's environmental coordinator, called this "the most prominent operation we deal with from an environmental standpoint."
Calcium oxide is used to raise the pH-level of the water to precipitate out the minerals, which are removed and trucked to the BFI landfill between Golden and Boulder. Sulfuric acid is then added to lower the pH before the water is discharged into Woods Creek.
The company has been so successful that a trout fishery thrives in the stream below the discharge site, and the city of Golden buys Henderson's reclaimed water for its drinking water supply.
Fellow Nadia White appreciated the chance to see Henderson's operations and environmental mitigation up close. "I always find it valuable to go to the site of large industrial activity to get a sense of the scope and the potential economic impact, and the economic contribution to a community."
Even moving millions of pounds of rock a day, Keskimaki estimates there are enough reserves still inside the Red Mountain lode – about 1.5 billion pounds -- to keep Henderson operating for 20 more years.
A building boom and demand for petroleum products in China is keeping current moly demand high, he said, as well as speculation that a parallel Alaska pipeline might be built if additional oil drilling is approved in the Arctic. But eventually the mine's rich reserves will be exhausted. When that happens, a major reclamation effort will be required on Henderson's 12,800-acre site.
Lucero said the most significant reclamation work will take place at the mill, where tailings will be removed and wetlands and dry islands created. The company is working already to thin scruffy forests near the mill where weak trees have succumbed to a pine bark beetle outbreak, leaving vast mountainsides of dead and dying trees.
As for the fate of the mine, it may have a sci-fi future. Keskimaki said Henderson is in the running to be a deep underground laboratory for nuclear physicists to study subatomic particles called neutrinos. Since cosmic rays above the Earth's surface can interfere with neutrino behavior, scientists need to observe them by blasting them at high speeds thousands of feet below ground, shielded by a deep rock overburden. Just thinking about it makes the moly mining process seem downright simplistic.
Keskimaki thinks the odds are good that Henderson could be selected, given its proximity to a major airport and the Denver metropolitan area. In the meantime, mining moly by the thousands of tons continues, out of view of the backcountry skiers and hikers and fishermen who frequent the high country above the mine's expansive underworld.
Check out these Web sites for more on the Henderson Mine, NSF plans to build a deep underground neutrino lab, and what neutrinos are and why scientists want to study them.
More than a half-mile below the surface of Red Mountain in the Colorado Rockies, it's a typical workday for Justin Whetton. He spends most of his 12-hour shift operating a gigantic loader inside a dark tunnel, scooping over 300 buckets of rock a day, hauling it from one shaft and dumping it down another where it falls into huge trucks that take it to a powerful underground crusher.
Whetton makes around $20 an hour for his labor, but each scoop of ore, weighing 10 or 11 tons, is worth $1,000. The value comes from a metal inside the rock, called molybdenum. About 44 lbs. of "moly," as it's known in the industry, is contained in each bucket Whetton moves at the Henderson Mine.
The mine, located below Berthoud Pass near Empire, Colo., is the largest primary molybdenum source in the world. Its owner, Climax Molybdenum, is a subsidiary of Phelps Dodge Corporation, the world's second-largest producer of molybdenum and copper after Codelco, Chile's state-owned mining company. Last year Phelps Dodge produced about 9 percent of the world's moly supply, some 28 million pounds, most of it coming out of Henderson's vast lode.
The Ted Scripps Fellows got a close-up look at a major underground mining operation when they visited Henderson on April 22. Donning hard hats, headlamps, safety goggles and a self-rescuing device designed to provide breathable air in the event of a mine emergency, the fellows and CEJ staff descended some 3,000 feet in a shaft elevator into the bowels of Red Mountain.
 |
| Ted Scripps Fellows deep inside Henderson Mine (Photo/Andrew Silva) |
Here, as if inside a giant subterranean maze, they boarded tractors that negotiated a warren of tunnels to give them an overview of some of the world's most sophisticated hard-rock mining operations. In the process, they learned a lot about a metal called moly.
While many people have never heard of molybdenum, let alone tried to pronounce it, they have almost certainly benefited from its use. Chemical-grade moly, the pure form mined and milled at Henderson, is used for many industrial purposes. It makes pipelines more corrosion-resistant, acts as a smoke retardant for plastics, and is used in CO2 detectors, fluorescent light bulb tubes, computer heat sinks, and in the orange paint pigment bought by the U.S. Navy.
However high-grade moly is best known as a lubricant. It's used in the manufacture of lower-friction piston rings in the automotive industry, as a spray for bicycle chains, and is added to greases and oils. In Europe, where automobile oil has a higher moly content, you only need to change your car's oil every 15,000 miles, Mine Manager Kurt Keskimaki said, adding that such oil is expected before long in the U.S.
 |
| Fellow Nadia White talks to Mine Manager Kurt Keskimaki (Photo/Andrew Silva) |
Moly is also used as a catalyst for getting rid of sulfur in petroleum refining, an important function in meeting clean-air standards. In fact, about half of the moly mined at Henderson goes to Houston where it's processed by Criterion, a division of Shell, which is a major buyer.
Production at Henderson began in 1976, following the ore body discovery in 1964. Initially found by Uranium Research and Development, or URAD, who thought it was uranium ore, it turned out to be molybdenum, an enormous deposit. Geologically, it was the perfect set of circumstances, 13 different mineralizing events that kept enriching the deposit with more layers of the purest moly in the world.
It's hard to get a handle on just how much of the mineral makes up the core of Red Mountain, but Keskimaki has the figures: "We sit on 166 million tons of moly ore, 600 million pounds of recoverable moly."
Shaft sinking commenced in 1968. Initial removal began at the 8,100-foot level, but current extraction is now at 7,210 feet. A quarter-million feet of long hole are drilled each year, using more than a million pounds of explosives. Once the ore is crushed at the bottom level of the mine, it's sent on a conveyor belt one mile up to the surface, then 14 miles further on the belt to the mill site across the mountains in the Williams Fork Valley.
Fellows and CEJ staffers marveled at the complex operation as they stood above the gyrating crusher on the mine floor, watching as 80-ton haul trucks, the biggest underground trucks in the world, dumped their load of rock into the crusher's bowl. Like a giant mortar and pestle, the device crunched the ore chunks into pieces of rock 4-8 inches in diameter, small enough to load onto the conveyor belt that whisks the ore over to the mill at about 50 mph. The process was noisy enough that the visitors were glad to have the earplugs provided, and at times the face masks necessary to cut the dust and exhaust that are inescapable amid such operations, despite mitigation efforts.
Mine ventilation is just one aspect of the Climax company's commitment to worker safety. "We move more tons of air in a day than tons of rock," said Keskimaki. That's a lot of air, since 21,300 tons of material are milled daily at Henderson.
Such complex ventilation systems are part of the reason why Henderson is Colorado's second biggest power user after Pueblo's steel mill. The mine and mill, which operate around the clock, use 47 megawatts a day for an average monthly energy bill of $1.5 million – less than half the steel mill's cost. Fellow Sam Eaton said he was "amazed at the amount of energy they use. It's mind-boggling."
 |
| Fellows "journey to the center of the Earth" (Photo/Andrew Silva) |
The conveyor belts are also power-hungry components of the Henderson enterprise, using 11,000 hp engines to transport the ore uphill to the mill. There, it is processed by separating the moly from its granite casing. First, the host rock is ground down into particles as fine as beach sand. During the milling, water and reagents are added, the latter causing molybdenum particles to float when the slurry is mixed with air. The moly adheres to the bubbles, allowing the metal to be separated from its host. More grinding and flotation further refines the moly concentrate, which at this point resembles ultra-fine, powdery graphite, very shiny and dark gray. In its final form as it leaves the mill, the moly is concentrated to nearly 250 times what it was when it entered as incoming ore. The process doesn't end here, though: the concentrate is filtered, dried and packaged for shipment by truck to further processing plants in Iowa, England and the Netherlands.
What's left over are the slurry remains and ore tailings. These are transported to the 1,000-acre tailing area where the moly-free granite settles and the water goes through an extensive reclamation process to be reused in a closed system at the mill.
Fifteen miles away, the mine sits near the head of the Clear Creek watershed, a region of alpine meadows and crystalline streams. Dealing with industrial wastewater is thus Henderson's biggest environmental stewardship issue. Fellows got a close-up look at the company's state-of-the-art treatment plant built in 1997, which handles up to 1600 gallons per minute from the mine. A million gallons a day are pumped into the plant from underground.
Ridding the water supply of toxic levels of manganese and zinc is the primary goal of the treatment facility. Tony Lucero, Henderson's environmental coordinator, called this "the most prominent operation we deal with from an environmental standpoint."
Calcium oxide is used to raise the pH-level of the water to precipitate out the minerals, which are removed and trucked to the BFI landfill between Golden and Boulder. Sulfuric acid is then added to lower the pH before the water is discharged into Woods Creek.
The company has been so successful that a trout fishery thrives in the stream below the discharge site, and the city of Golden buys Henderson's reclaimed water for its drinking water supply.
Fellow Nadia White appreciated the chance to see Henderson's operations and environmental mitigation up close. "I always find it valuable to go to the site of large industrial activity to get a sense of the scope and the potential economic impact, and the economic contribution to a community."
Even moving millions of pounds of rock a day, Keskimaki estimates there are enough reserves still inside the Red Mountain lode – about 1.5 billion pounds -- to keep Henderson operating for 20 more years.
A building boom and demand for petroleum products in China is keeping current moly demand high, he said, as well as speculation that a parallel Alaska pipeline might be built if additional oil drilling is approved in the Arctic. But eventually the mine's rich reserves will be exhausted. When that happens, a major reclamation effort will be required on Henderson's 12,800-acre site.
Lucero said the most significant reclamation work will take place at the mill, where tailings will be removed and wetlands and dry islands created. The company is working already to thin scruffy forests near the mill where weak trees have succumbed to a pine bark beetle outbreak, leaving vast mountainsides of dead and dying trees.
As for the fate of the mine, it may have a sci-fi future. Keskimaki said Henderson is in the running to be a deep underground laboratory for nuclear physicists to study subatomic particles called neutrinos. Since cosmic rays above the Earth's surface can interfere with neutrino behavior, scientists need to observe them by blasting them at high speeds thousands of feet below ground, shielded by a deep rock overburden. Just thinking about it makes the moly mining process seem downright simplistic.
Keskimaki thinks the odds are good that Henderson could be selected, given its proximity to a major airport and the Denver metropolitan area. In the meantime, mining moly by the thousands of tons continues, out of view of the backcountry skiers and hikers and fishermen who frequent the high country above the mine's expansive underworld.
Check out these Web sites for more on the Henderson Mine, NSF plans to build a deep underground neutrino lab, and what neutrinos are and why scientists want to study them.
Parks Project Unveils Mongolia's Natural Treasures
By Wendy Worrall Redal
Even the most well-traveled vagabonds have likely never heard of Altai Tavaan Bogd National Park. Tucked away on the far western fringe of Mongolia, near the juncture of Kazakhstan, China and Siberia, lies a one and half million-acre reserve where glaciated peaks rise more than 14,000 feet above some of the most pristine lakes in the world.
The park's forests and tundra are home to many species, some endangered or rare, including snow leopards, wolves, argali mountain sheep, ibex and elk. Golden eagles soar above the mountain valleys, where nomadic herders train and use them in hunting, as ethnic Kazahks have done for centuries.
Several outfitters in Mongolia offer visitors the chance to explore this remote backcountry on horseback, stopping to hike through flower-filled meadows and along rivers tumbling with glacial till from ice-bound slopes above. Travelers may be invited to share a cup of mare's milk tea, Mongolia's most common form of hospitality, inside a local family's yurt, the traditional round, felt-covered dwelling most herder families call home.
Few tourists, even among "adventure travelers," have been privileged to see the Tavaan Bogd peaks, or Mongolia's other magnificent national parks, including Lake Khovsgol, perhaps the clearest lake on the planet. Only a few hundred thousand visitors come to Mongolia each year. That's changing, however, as word is getting out about the country's dramatic natural gifts.
That growing awareness, translated into more tourism that focuses on Mongolia's unique landscapes, may be the key to protecting Mongolia's threatened natural ecosystems. It's the intent at the heart of a novel project launched by two journalists, both alumni of CEJ programs, who are working to provide maps, postcards and interpretive guides for Mongolia's national parks. The goal is to enhance visitors' experiences through education and information while returning profits through the sale of such materials to conservation efforts in the parks.
Writer Jeremy Schmidt and photojournalist Ted Wood, longtime friends and professional colleagues, founded Conservation Ink in 2003, a not-for-profit organization based in Jackson Hole, Wyo., as an avenue to "give back" to the world's threatened natural places they've built most of their careers covering, Wood said.
Their mission is to help developing countries protect their parks through funds made available from publications produced by Conservation Ink, not unlike the support for U.S. national parks that's provided by non-profit associations that return profits from visitor center book and gift shops back to the parks.
Wood was a Ted Scripps Fellow in 2001-02, and both Wood and Schmidt attended the 2001 Scripps Howard Institute on the Environment. It was during the Institute, in fact, that the first germ of their idea began to flower. Mongolia's then-environment minister, and D. Galbadrakh, director of the Mongolian Society for Environmental Education, were also attending the Institute. Wood and Schmidt struck up conversations with them, and learned of Mongolia's needs. Their imaginations began to take flight, and two years later, Conservation Ink was born.
Mongolia is Conservation Ink's pilot project. Like many developing countries, Mongolia's natural beauty and environmental health are threatened by a lack of financial resources. Struggling economically after the demise of the Soviet Union, the Mongolian government is looking to industrialization and resource development as paths to a vital market economy and brighter economic future. Often, however, exploiting natural resources comes at the cost of destroying natural landscapes and fragile ecosystems.
Wood acknowledged that while Mongolia's government has made an impressive effort so far in setting aside land for protection, about 13 percent of its total area, the economic pull to go in the other direction is strong. Parks have to be able to pay for themselves if they are to survive.
That's where Conservation Ink comes in. If the group's effort can help prove that a sustainable tourism economy is possible, much of the battle will be won. To make that happen, though, people have to know about places like Altai Tavaan Bogd and Lake Khovsgol National Parks.
Those are the first two Mongolian destinations that Conservation Ink has produced materials for. With a seed grant from National Geographic, Wood and Schmidt took several field research trips to Mongolia, horsetrekking with local guides to experience, study and photograph the parks. They also spent time in the capital, making connections that would lead to the opening of an Ulaanbaatar-based sourcing and distribution office for Conservation Ink.
They brought the first sets of map-guides and postcards back to Mongolia to distribute in the fall of 2004, where they are being sold to park visitors and in shops in Ulaanbaatar. CI is also connecting with tour operators, so they can make the materials available to their clients. The publications will help build regional tourism economies, where infrastructure is also a problem, as well as spreading the word (and images) of Mongolia worldwide through sales over the Internet.
Schmidt and Wood are actively pursuing the additional financial support CI needs to continue its Mongolia work and expand into other countries. Other donors, including USAID, have come on board as word of the non-profit's mission meets a receptive audience.
The initial maps and postcards produced by Wood and Schmidt are gorgeous. The text is enlightening and the photography stunning. Take a first-hand look at them on Conservation Ink's web site, www.conservationink.org, where you can also read in greater detail about the organization and its activities.
Look for an update in the fall edition of CEJ News/Views on Conservation Ink's continuing work in Mongolia during the summer of 2005.
Even the most well-traveled vagabonds have likely never heard of Altai Tavaan Bogd National Park. Tucked away on the far western fringe of Mongolia, near the juncture of Kazakhstan, China and Siberia, lies a one and half million-acre reserve where glaciated peaks rise more than 14,000 feet above some of the most pristine lakes in the world.
 |
| Altai Tavaan Bogd National Park (Photo/Ted Wood) |
The park's forests and tundra are home to many species, some endangered or rare, including snow leopards, wolves, argali mountain sheep, ibex and elk. Golden eagles soar above the mountain valleys, where nomadic herders train and use them in hunting, as ethnic Kazahks have done for centuries.
Several outfitters in Mongolia offer visitors the chance to explore this remote backcountry on horseback, stopping to hike through flower-filled meadows and along rivers tumbling with glacial till from ice-bound slopes above. Travelers may be invited to share a cup of mare's milk tea, Mongolia's most common form of hospitality, inside a local family's yurt, the traditional round, felt-covered dwelling most herder families call home.
 |
| Traditional Kazakh eagle hunter (Photo/Ted Wood) |
Few tourists, even among "adventure travelers," have been privileged to see the Tavaan Bogd peaks, or Mongolia's other magnificent national parks, including Lake Khovsgol, perhaps the clearest lake on the planet. Only a few hundred thousand visitors come to Mongolia each year. That's changing, however, as word is getting out about the country's dramatic natural gifts.
That growing awareness, translated into more tourism that focuses on Mongolia's unique landscapes, may be the key to protecting Mongolia's threatened natural ecosystems. It's the intent at the heart of a novel project launched by two journalists, both alumni of CEJ programs, who are working to provide maps, postcards and interpretive guides for Mongolia's national parks. The goal is to enhance visitors' experiences through education and information while returning profits through the sale of such materials to conservation efforts in the parks.
Writer Jeremy Schmidt and photojournalist Ted Wood, longtime friends and professional colleagues, founded Conservation Ink in 2003, a not-for-profit organization based in Jackson Hole, Wyo., as an avenue to "give back" to the world's threatened natural places they've built most of their careers covering, Wood said.
Their mission is to help developing countries protect their parks through funds made available from publications produced by Conservation Ink, not unlike the support for U.S. national parks that's provided by non-profit associations that return profits from visitor center book and gift shops back to the parks.
Wood was a Ted Scripps Fellow in 2001-02, and both Wood and Schmidt attended the 2001 Scripps Howard Institute on the Environment. It was during the Institute, in fact, that the first germ of their idea began to flower. Mongolia's then-environment minister, and D. Galbadrakh, director of the Mongolian Society for Environmental Education, were also attending the Institute. Wood and Schmidt struck up conversations with them, and learned of Mongolia's needs. Their imaginations began to take flight, and two years later, Conservation Ink was born.
Mongolia is Conservation Ink's pilot project. Like many developing countries, Mongolia's natural beauty and environmental health are threatened by a lack of financial resources. Struggling economically after the demise of the Soviet Union, the Mongolian government is looking to industrialization and resource development as paths to a vital market economy and brighter economic future. Often, however, exploiting natural resources comes at the cost of destroying natural landscapes and fragile ecosystems.
 |
| Lake Khovsgol, in northern Mongolia, is one of the clearest, cleanest lakes in the world (Photo/Ted Wood) |
Wood acknowledged that while Mongolia's government has made an impressive effort so far in setting aside land for protection, about 13 percent of its total area, the economic pull to go in the other direction is strong. Parks have to be able to pay for themselves if they are to survive.
That's where Conservation Ink comes in. If the group's effort can help prove that a sustainable tourism economy is possible, much of the battle will be won. To make that happen, though, people have to know about places like Altai Tavaan Bogd and Lake Khovsgol National Parks.
Those are the first two Mongolian destinations that Conservation Ink has produced materials for. With a seed grant from National Geographic, Wood and Schmidt took several field research trips to Mongolia, horsetrekking with local guides to experience, study and photograph the parks. They also spent time in the capital, making connections that would lead to the opening of an Ulaanbaatar-based sourcing and distribution office for Conservation Ink.
They brought the first sets of map-guides and postcards back to Mongolia to distribute in the fall of 2004, where they are being sold to park visitors and in shops in Ulaanbaatar. CI is also connecting with tour operators, so they can make the materials available to their clients. The publications will help build regional tourism economies, where infrastructure is also a problem, as well as spreading the word (and images) of Mongolia worldwide through sales over the Internet.
Schmidt and Wood are actively pursuing the additional financial support CI needs to continue its Mongolia work and expand into other countries. Other donors, including USAID, have come on board as word of the non-profit's mission meets a receptive audience.
The initial maps and postcards produced by Wood and Schmidt are gorgeous. The text is enlightening and the photography stunning. Take a first-hand look at them on Conservation Ink's web site, www.conservationink.org, where you can also read in greater detail about the organization and its activities.
Look for an update in the fall edition of CEJ News/Views on Conservation Ink's continuing work in Mongolia during the summer of 2005.
Alex Markels Joins Morning Edition at NPR
By Wendy Worrall Redal
When my alarm blasts me out of sleepy reverie at 6:30 a.m., I need precisely two things to start my day: coffee and National Public Radio’s Morning Edition.
The news show’s staff, however, has been up far longer than most listeners have, preparing the broadcast from the network’s studios in Washington, D.C. In fact, Alex Markels’ alarm goes off at 4:00 each weekday morning, just enough time for him to grab a coffee, orange juice and Odwalla energy bar before driving or roller-blading to his new job at Morning Edition by 5:00 – he can’t take public transportation because it doesn’t run that early.
Markels, who was a Ted Scripps Fellow in 2004-05, joined NPR in April, moving from his Boulder home and an active freelance career in print to his first major radio stint, in the hubbub of the nation’s capital.
When he arrives, he checks on breaking stories to include or update for the day’s broadcast. By 7 a.m., he’s working with the producer on the morning’s second feed, keeping track of the wire services and newspapers to make sure nothing is missed. Once noon rolls around, he’s ready to start working on future shows.
Markels, who has plenty of experience in daily newspaper journalism, finds the pace intense but gratifying.
“It’s been a huge transition, more from a process standpoint that a content standpoint. I’m supervising staff, working and negotiating with news desks, and turning stories around in as little as a few minutes. Even in daily news reporting, the news cycle wasn’t nearly so short.”
There’s a special satisfaction for Markels in “hearing a story on the air that we put together five minutes before.”
It hadn’t occurred to him to pursue openings he’d seen advertised at NPR previously, since he had little radio experience. But through contact with an editor Markels had worked with at U.S. News and World Report, NPR came looking for him.
“The fact that I founded a community radio station a while back seemed to be enough to demonstrate my interest in the medium,” he said. Markels launched Radio Free Minturn, a public FM station, from a small town in the Colorado Rockies in 1997.
So far, every story he has been involved with at Morning Edition has been an excursion into exciting new territory. As he arrived in Washington, Pope John Paul II had just died.
“I spent the next two weeks learning everything I could about papal succession,” he said.
His Ted Scripps Fellowship experience has already served Markels in his new role as an editor, giving him helpful perspective from which to evaluate the merit of particular stories.
“If a story breaks, such as the recent Bush administration decision on the ‘roadless rule’ [in national forests], I at least have some context to decide whether it’s worth covering,” he observed.
Markels is enjoying D.C.’s ethnic diversity, free museums and spring flowers.
The downside? Traffic. Oh, and he’s still trying to get some sleep. He’s had plenty of preparation for his taxing schedule, though, as the father of 16-month-old Moses. While Moses may now be sleeping through the night, however, it doesn’t appear that his dad will be doing so any time soon.
When my alarm blasts me out of sleepy reverie at 6:30 a.m., I need precisely two things to start my day: coffee and National Public Radio’s Morning Edition.
The news show’s staff, however, has been up far longer than most listeners have, preparing the broadcast from the network’s studios in Washington, D.C. In fact, Alex Markels’ alarm goes off at 4:00 each weekday morning, just enough time for him to grab a coffee, orange juice and Odwalla energy bar before driving or roller-blading to his new job at Morning Edition by 5:00 – he can’t take public transportation because it doesn’t run that early.
Markels, who was a Ted Scripps Fellow in 2004-05, joined NPR in April, moving from his Boulder home and an active freelance career in print to his first major radio stint, in the hubbub of the nation’s capital.
 |
| Alex Markels |
When he arrives, he checks on breaking stories to include or update for the day’s broadcast. By 7 a.m., he’s working with the producer on the morning’s second feed, keeping track of the wire services and newspapers to make sure nothing is missed. Once noon rolls around, he’s ready to start working on future shows.
Markels, who has plenty of experience in daily newspaper journalism, finds the pace intense but gratifying.
“It’s been a huge transition, more from a process standpoint that a content standpoint. I’m supervising staff, working and negotiating with news desks, and turning stories around in as little as a few minutes. Even in daily news reporting, the news cycle wasn’t nearly so short.”
There’s a special satisfaction for Markels in “hearing a story on the air that we put together five minutes before.”
It hadn’t occurred to him to pursue openings he’d seen advertised at NPR previously, since he had little radio experience. But through contact with an editor Markels had worked with at U.S. News and World Report, NPR came looking for him.
“The fact that I founded a community radio station a while back seemed to be enough to demonstrate my interest in the medium,” he said. Markels launched Radio Free Minturn, a public FM station, from a small town in the Colorado Rockies in 1997.
So far, every story he has been involved with at Morning Edition has been an excursion into exciting new territory. As he arrived in Washington, Pope John Paul II had just died.
“I spent the next two weeks learning everything I could about papal succession,” he said.
His Ted Scripps Fellowship experience has already served Markels in his new role as an editor, giving him helpful perspective from which to evaluate the merit of particular stories.
“If a story breaks, such as the recent Bush administration decision on the ‘roadless rule’ [in national forests], I at least have some context to decide whether it’s worth covering,” he observed.
Markels is enjoying D.C.’s ethnic diversity, free museums and spring flowers.
The downside? Traffic. Oh, and he’s still trying to get some sleep. He’s had plenty of preparation for his taxing schedule, though, as the father of 16-month-old Moses. While Moses may now be sleeping through the night, however, it doesn’t appear that his dad will be doing so any time soon.
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| Moses Markels contemplates new mischief as mom Holly looks on (Photo/Alex Markels) |
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Thursday, February 3, 2005
Fellows Updates
The Ted Scripps Fellows' family is growing! At least three former fellows have become parents in the past year. Congratulations to the families of Bill Adler, Pat Joseph and Ted Wood!
Bill Adler helped swell the ranks of Colorado-based former fellows when he and his wife Robin moved to Denver in the fall. Accompanying them were their "rogue hound, Roxie," and their son, Zeke, whom they adopted as a newborn in June. Of Zeke, Bill writes, "He sports a thicket of red hair, a smile as wide as an offensive tackle, and an appetite to match." Bill also "laureled" in a recent edition of the Columbia Journalism Review for his Austin Chronicle article uncovering the true source of some pro-nuclear editorials. Click here to read CJR's write-up.
David Baron recently returned from a trip to India, which he calls "amazing, exhausting, exotic, depressing, uplifting... a bit of everything." His three-week "lecture tour" of the country was sponsored by the U.S. State department, which is working with Indians on how to address conflicts between humans and wildlife in both countries. David's 2003 book The Beast in the Garden, won the Colorado Book Award in November for the "Colorado and the West" category. He's now settling into his new job, working as global development director for the public radio show "The World," and his new marriage, to partner Paul. David writes, "That's one advantage of living in Massachusetts—the only state in the union where we could get hitched."
Elizabeth Bluemink pulled up stakes in Florida last June and moved to Juneau, Alaska, to cover logging, fishing and mining for the Juneau Empire. She says she loves Alaska and her new job so far, including some stories on gold mining, small-scale logging in the Tongass and state-federal conflict over proposed off-shore fish farming.
A project of Jennifer Bowles and two colleagues at the Press-Enterprise in Riverside, Calif., won a second place award from the Associated Press News Executive Council for California and Nevada. The project was a result of her team's investigation into the pollution at a missile testing site and its impact on a nearby residential neighborhood, where many people have gotten thyroid illness.
Rebecca Huntington traveled to China to report on pollution, coal mining and global climate change for the Jackson Hole News & Guide. Of her paper, she writes, "The small-town newspaper has a strong interest in global issues, particularly when global climate change could impact the town's winter tourism economy."
In June, Alex Markels became a "contributing editor" at U.S. News & World Report. Since then he has covered the presidential election, the Forest Service's poor fire safety record and the growing oil shortage. In October he had a cover story, called "Angry in America," which examined the election's impact on Americans' personal relationships. Check out a list of some of his recent stories. Last month Alex went to Panama on assignment for an eco-adventure story. Later this winter he'll be taking his son Moses on his first foreign travel adventure, to Machu Picchu and the Peruvian jungle.
The Colorado contingent of former fellows continues to grow! In October, Kim McGuire left the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and started work at the Denver Post. She writes, "I am covering toxics, which includes air and water pollution, hazardous waste cleanups, the nuclear West, and EPA's environmental regulation and enforcement. They are also humoring my interest in chemical weapons." And in that vein, on Oct. 3, her two-part series on the destruction of chemical weapons, which was the subject of her fellowship program last year, ran in the Democrat-Gazette. She says she hopes to continue working on the topic, and expand it to include international demilitarization efforts, especially in the former Soviet Union.
Emily Murphy reports she's still with USA Today, working as a multimedia producer. She went to the Democratic and Republican National Conventions in Boston and New York; her resulting multimedia pieces are online at Behind the Scenes at the DNC and Behind the Scenes at the RNC. She also wrote a story on NASCAR's female fans. The story and multimedia piece are both also available online.
Bruce Ritchie reports he recently worked on a story about the gill net ban approved by Florida voters 10 years ago. His reporting included going out with state wildlife officers on a night mission—complete with night vision goggles—to try to catch fishers using illegal nets. In November Bruce and his wife, Sue Ellen Smith, went on vacation to Costa Rica. "We had a good time viewing rainforest birds and other wildlife, seeing the Arenal volcano, whitewater rafting on the Sarapiqui River and snorkeling in the Pacific Ocean at Tamarindo," he writes.
David Wilson is teaching radio production at the University of Colorado at Boulder's journalism school. He'll also be providing daily news coverage from the state legislature to 12 Colorado community radio stations this year.
Bill Adler helped swell the ranks of Colorado-based former fellows when he and his wife Robin moved to Denver in the fall. Accompanying them were their "rogue hound, Roxie," and their son, Zeke, whom they adopted as a newborn in June. Of Zeke, Bill writes, "He sports a thicket of red hair, a smile as wide as an offensive tackle, and an appetite to match." Bill also "laureled" in a recent edition of the Columbia Journalism Review for his Austin Chronicle article uncovering the true source of some pro-nuclear editorials. Click here to read CJR's write-up.
 |
| Zeke Adler models his punk hair-do. |
David Baron recently returned from a trip to India, which he calls "amazing, exhausting, exotic, depressing, uplifting... a bit of everything." His three-week "lecture tour" of the country was sponsored by the U.S. State department, which is working with Indians on how to address conflicts between humans and wildlife in both countries. David's 2003 book The Beast in the Garden, won the Colorado Book Award in November for the "Colorado and the West" category. He's now settling into his new job, working as global development director for the public radio show "The World," and his new marriage, to partner Paul. David writes, "That's one advantage of living in Massachusetts—the only state in the union where we could get hitched."
Elizabeth Bluemink pulled up stakes in Florida last June and moved to Juneau, Alaska, to cover logging, fishing and mining for the Juneau Empire. She says she loves Alaska and her new job so far, including some stories on gold mining, small-scale logging in the Tongass and state-federal conflict over proposed off-shore fish farming.
 |
| Lucia Joseph says "cheese!" |
A project of Jennifer Bowles and two colleagues at the Press-Enterprise in Riverside, Calif., won a second place award from the Associated Press News Executive Council for California and Nevada. The project was a result of her team's investigation into the pollution at a missile testing site and its impact on a nearby residential neighborhood, where many people have gotten thyroid illness.
Rebecca Huntington traveled to China to report on pollution, coal mining and global climate change for the Jackson Hole News & Guide. Of her paper, she writes, "The small-town newspaper has a strong interest in global issues, particularly when global climate change could impact the town's winter tourism economy."
In June, Alex Markels became a "contributing editor" at U.S. News & World Report. Since then he has covered the presidential election, the Forest Service's poor fire safety record and the growing oil shortage. In October he had a cover story, called "Angry in America," which examined the election's impact on Americans' personal relationships. Check out a list of some of his recent stories. Last month Alex went to Panama on assignment for an eco-adventure story. Later this winter he'll be taking his son Moses on his first foreign travel adventure, to Machu Picchu and the Peruvian jungle.
The Colorado contingent of former fellows continues to grow! In October, Kim McGuire left the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and started work at the Denver Post. She writes, "I am covering toxics, which includes air and water pollution, hazardous waste cleanups, the nuclear West, and EPA's environmental regulation and enforcement. They are also humoring my interest in chemical weapons." And in that vein, on Oct. 3, her two-part series on the destruction of chemical weapons, which was the subject of her fellowship program last year, ran in the Democrat-Gazette. She says she hopes to continue working on the topic, and expand it to include international demilitarization efforts, especially in the former Soviet Union.
 |
| Ted and Conor Wood show off their silly hats. |
Emily Murphy reports she's still with USA Today, working as a multimedia producer. She went to the Democratic and Republican National Conventions in Boston and New York; her resulting multimedia pieces are online at Behind the Scenes at the DNC and Behind the Scenes at the RNC. She also wrote a story on NASCAR's female fans. The story and multimedia piece are both also available online.
Bruce Ritchie reports he recently worked on a story about the gill net ban approved by Florida voters 10 years ago. His reporting included going out with state wildlife officers on a night mission—complete with night vision goggles—to try to catch fishers using illegal nets. In November Bruce and his wife, Sue Ellen Smith, went on vacation to Costa Rica. "We had a good time viewing rainforest birds and other wildlife, seeing the Arenal volcano, whitewater rafting on the Sarapiqui River and snorkeling in the Pacific Ocean at Tamarindo," he writes.
David Wilson is teaching radio production at the University of Colorado at Boulder's journalism school. He'll also be providing daily news coverage from the state legislature to 12 Colorado community radio stations this year.
Two Former Fellows Win Colorado Book Awards
By Wendy Worrall Redal
With more than 400 guests looking on, former Ted Scripps Fellows David Baron and Daniel Glick were honored with Colorado Book Awards on Nov. 18, 2004. The 13th annual gala, sponsored by the Colorado Center for the Book, took place at Denver's Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum. Fifteen winners, all Colorado authors, were recognized in 14 categories. Each of the books was published in 2003.
Baron's book, The Beast in the Garden: A Modern Parable of Man and Nature, tied for first place in the Colorado and the West category. Glick won the History/Biography category with Monkey Dancing: A Father, Two Kids and a Journey to the Ends of the Earth, and Tom Yulsman, co-director of the Center for Environmental Journalism and long-time science writer, was a finalist in the Non-Fiction category for Origins: The Quest for Our Cosmic Roots, his account of the emergence of the universe and life within it.
The Beast in the Garden (W.W. Norton), a study of the complex interaction between mountain lions and humans in Colorado's rapidly growing Front Range foothills, grew out of Baron's fellowship project while he was at the CEJ from 1998-1999. He became fascinated with the big cats and the problems that ensue when predators and people begin to find themselves in close proximity.
"Obviously, I was thrilled to receive a book award, but I was especially thrilled to receive a Colorado Book Award," Baron said.
"When I was writing my book, I wondered how Coloradans would react to it. Would they feel I portrayed the state's history, culture, and landscape accurately? Would they embrace the book as a welcome addition to Colorado literature, or reject it as the work of an 'outsider'? I like to think that receiving the award is a sign that the book has been embraced, and that means a lot to me since I've embraced Colorado as my new home."
The Beast in the Garden has just been released in paperback.
Glick's winning title, Monkey Dancing (Public Affairs), is the saga of the 5-month trip around the world he took with his two children in 2001 following the departure of their mother to another relationship in another state, and the death of Glick's brother to cancer. With his world turned awry, Glick decided to reconstitute his family anew with an adventurous itinerary to some of the earth's most remote and threatened natural places. Monkey Dancing chronicles their physical and emotional journey.
A special delight for Glick, who was a fellow in 2000-2001, was that his 13-year-old daughter Zoe was present to accept the award with him. (Son Kolya was studying abroad in Australia at the time.)
"It was so much fun to have her on the platform with me," said Glick. "It was kind of a dual pleasure to get the recognition and be there with Zoe was who was such an integral part of the experience."
Glick's first book, Powder Burn (Public Affairs), was a 2002 Colorado Book Award finalist but did not win. "I was a bridesmaid, but this time I was a bride," he noted, adding, "I feel like I'm really a member of a community" among writers in Colorado, a state he has called home for 10 years.
Yulsman's Origins, one of three finalists in the Non-Fiction category, was edged out by best-selling author Jon Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven.
As for future book award contenders, neither Baron nor Glick has immediate plans to write another book, while Yulsman has an idea in the works. Baron's new position as Global Development Editor for "The World," a public radio program co-produced by Boston's WGBH and the BBC, has put other book goals on hold for now. Glick, too, is at full capacity with magazine work. He is currently working on three natural-history-related articles for National Geographic and Smithsonian.
Yulsman is tentatively collaborating with CU geology professor Jim White on a book about how the Earth's life support systems, particularly climate, influenced human evolution, and how humans now dominate those systems. "We are thinking about a treatment that in its broad sweep would be something like Guns, Germs and Steel," said Yulsman, "but the treatment would be more journalistic."
In the meantime, Yulsman remains busy juggling teaching, heading up the news-editorial sequence in CU's School of Journalism and Mass Communication, co-directing the Center for Environmental Journalism, and freelancing for magazines on the side, when there is a 'side.'
For more details on each of these books, or to purchase them, go to: www.beastinthegarden.com, www.danielglick.net, or to www.amazon.com for Origins.
With more than 400 guests looking on, former Ted Scripps Fellows David Baron and Daniel Glick were honored with Colorado Book Awards on Nov. 18, 2004. The 13th annual gala, sponsored by the Colorado Center for the Book, took place at Denver's Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum. Fifteen winners, all Colorado authors, were recognized in 14 categories. Each of the books was published in 2003.
Baron's book, The Beast in the Garden: A Modern Parable of Man and Nature, tied for first place in the Colorado and the West category. Glick won the History/Biography category with Monkey Dancing: A Father, Two Kids and a Journey to the Ends of the Earth, and Tom Yulsman, co-director of the Center for Environmental Journalism and long-time science writer, was a finalist in the Non-Fiction category for Origins: The Quest for Our Cosmic Roots, his account of the emergence of the universe and life within it.
The Beast in the Garden (W.W. Norton), a study of the complex interaction between mountain lions and humans in Colorado's rapidly growing Front Range foothills, grew out of Baron's fellowship project while he was at the CEJ from 1998-1999. He became fascinated with the big cats and the problems that ensue when predators and people begin to find themselves in close proximity."Obviously, I was thrilled to receive a book award, but I was especially thrilled to receive a Colorado Book Award," Baron said.
"When I was writing my book, I wondered how Coloradans would react to it. Would they feel I portrayed the state's history, culture, and landscape accurately? Would they embrace the book as a welcome addition to Colorado literature, or reject it as the work of an 'outsider'? I like to think that receiving the award is a sign that the book has been embraced, and that means a lot to me since I've embraced Colorado as my new home."
The Beast in the Garden has just been released in paperback.
Glick's winning title, Monkey Dancing (Public Affairs), is the saga of the 5-month trip around the world he took with his two children in 2001 following the departure of their mother to another relationship in another state, and the death of Glick's brother to cancer. With his world turned awry, Glick decided to reconstitute his family anew with an adventurous itinerary to some of the earth's most remote and threatened natural places. Monkey Dancing chronicles their physical and emotional journey.A special delight for Glick, who was a fellow in 2000-2001, was that his 13-year-old daughter Zoe was present to accept the award with him. (Son Kolya was studying abroad in Australia at the time.)
"It was so much fun to have her on the platform with me," said Glick. "It was kind of a dual pleasure to get the recognition and be there with Zoe was who was such an integral part of the experience."
Glick's first book, Powder Burn (Public Affairs), was a 2002 Colorado Book Award finalist but did not win. "I was a bridesmaid, but this time I was a bride," he noted, adding, "I feel like I'm really a member of a community" among writers in Colorado, a state he has called home for 10 years.
Yulsman's Origins, one of three finalists in the Non-Fiction category, was edged out by best-selling author Jon Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven.As for future book award contenders, neither Baron nor Glick has immediate plans to write another book, while Yulsman has an idea in the works. Baron's new position as Global Development Editor for "The World," a public radio program co-produced by Boston's WGBH and the BBC, has put other book goals on hold for now. Glick, too, is at full capacity with magazine work. He is currently working on three natural-history-related articles for National Geographic and Smithsonian.
Yulsman is tentatively collaborating with CU geology professor Jim White on a book about how the Earth's life support systems, particularly climate, influenced human evolution, and how humans now dominate those systems. "We are thinking about a treatment that in its broad sweep would be something like Guns, Germs and Steel," said Yulsman, "but the treatment would be more journalistic."
In the meantime, Yulsman remains busy juggling teaching, heading up the news-editorial sequence in CU's School of Journalism and Mass Communication, co-directing the Center for Environmental Journalism, and freelancing for magazines on the side, when there is a 'side.'
For more details on each of these books, or to purchase them, go to: www.beastinthegarden.com, www.danielglick.net, or to www.amazon.com for Origins.
Wednesday, February 2, 2005
Glick Chases Climate Story from Alaska to the Atlantic Ocean
By Emily Cooper
Not everyone gets the chance to write for an internationally acclaimed magazine such as National Geographic. Even fewer people have that magazine asking them to do a story, especially when it's the first one they've ever written for the publication. And within that narrow subset of people, only a handful can say they got to chase their story to places as diverse as Alaska, Louisiana and Bermuda.
Dan Glick, a Ted Scripps Fellow in 2000-2001, is one of that handful.
In the September 2004 issue of National Geographic, Glick's story is the first in a three-part package entitled "Global Warning." He said the editors contacted him early on about writing the story because of stories he'd done on climate change in the past, including for Newsweek. In deciding where in the world to set his story, he said he tried to choose locations that had some concrete data, and places where changes are already happening.
"The overriding question was 'How is the earth changing, and how do researchers and scientists know that it's changing?'" he said.
The issue, which National Geographic editor-in-chief Bill Allen admitted in his "Letter from the Editor" would alienate some readers, marks a step forward for reporting on climate change, which most scientists have been insisting on for years, but many Americans still think is nothing more than a theory.
"That's where the state of the science is," Glick said, matter-of-factly, in a recent interview. "You'll also notice that we didn't go and find the two or three outlier skeptics."
What he found instead was an Inupiat whaling captain, a Cajun levee district head, and some scientists on a boat near Bermuda, all of whom told Glick the same thing: the climate is changing, and it will impact lives in a very real way.
On a spit of open tundra jutting out where the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas come together in northernmost Alaska sits the town of Barrow. It's "sort of a ramshackle sort of place," Glick said. But it's also a scientific and cultural outpost, and it was there that Glick met an Inupiat elder who told him how whaling, a subsistence activity for the Inupiat, has changed over his lifetime.
"I talk to you about things that I have seen," Glick recalls the man saying. He told Glick of the changes he and other hunters had observed in the ice itself, which is critical to their culture. Whalers, the man explained, have a harder time now because they can't trust traditional knowledge about ice conditions. To illustrate, the man told Glick a story about a group of whalers who got stranded on a chunk of ice—ice that betrayed them when it broke off from the mainland and floated into the ocean. The men were rescued by helicopter but the story remains, a testament to the changes wrought by global warming.
In Louisiana, Glick traveled to Bayou Lafourche, located southwest of New Orleans, where the land seems to be dissolving into the Gulf of Mexico. That impression isn't far off. Glick said it was in Bayou Lafourche that he "learned what sea level rise looks like in fast motion." It's also where he met Windell Curole, the head of the levee district, who has the improbable task of keeping that rising water under control.
Residents of southern Louisiana are learning the meaning of "subsidence"—quite literally the sinking of the earth on which they live. Subsidence is caused by sea level rise, sediments not being replenished in the Mississippi delta, and possibly also gas and oil drilling, which might be causing the ground to collapse. To battle subsidence, communities have constructed a complicated network of levees and dikes, which help control water during storm surges, with the goal of keeping water from the gulf out of the cities.
Curole is charged with deciding when people need to evacuate, when they can come back, and which gates get opened or closed to manage flooding. It's a problem that right now is pretty unique to southern Louisiana and other places that are built at or below sea level. But as sea levels rise as a result of glacial melt from climate change, the problem—and jobs like Curole's—will become a lot more common.
"He was somebody that had to deal with what was essentially going to be a lot of communities' future," Glick said.
But not all changes caused by climate change seem logical on the surface. Glick also spent a few days on a research vessel near Bermuda, talking to scientists who are measuring the temperature, salinity and other properties of the ocean water there. It's part of a larger, long-term study that's looking at how the ocean is changing as ice melts near the poles.
Glick said the biggest implication for the scientists' research is the impact all the new fresh water will have on a natural ocean cycle called thermohaline circulation. Basically, in the Atlantic Ocean warmer, saltier water moves north along the Gulf Stream and is replaced by cooler, fresher water from the Arctic. The process brings warm water and air to the north Atlantic, and helps keep Europe's climate temperate. Scientists are concerned that the influx of colder fresh water from the Arctic could disturb the circulation, effectively shutting down the Gulf Stream and actually leaving Europe colder for a while.
This might be a hard sell to some—that global warming could result in lower temperatures in some places—but Glick didn't seem to think it would be. "The earth's climatic systems are really complex," he said.
He added that in the past decade, scientists have done a lot more interdisciplinary research using data from sources as diverse as ancient ice cores, tree rings, lake sediments and stalactites. Each method has holes, he said, but all together the evidence is "very compelling" that climate change is real, and it's caused by humans.
"The convincing case is that what's happening now is anomalous," he said. "It's outside of the realm of any sort of normal pattern that can be explained without adding in these human influences."
Glick is a freelance journalist and author of two books, Powder Burn: Arson, Money and Mystery on Vail Mountain and Monkey Dancing: A Father, Two Kids, and a Journey to the Ends of the Earth, which won the Colorado Book Award for best History/Biography in 2003.
Not everyone gets the chance to write for an internationally acclaimed magazine such as National Geographic. Even fewer people have that magazine asking them to do a story, especially when it's the first one they've ever written for the publication. And within that narrow subset of people, only a handful can say they got to chase their story to places as diverse as Alaska, Louisiana and Bermuda.
Dan Glick, a Ted Scripps Fellow in 2000-2001, is one of that handful.
In the September 2004 issue of National Geographic, Glick's story is the first in a three-part package entitled "Global Warning." He said the editors contacted him early on about writing the story because of stories he'd done on climate change in the past, including for Newsweek. In deciding where in the world to set his story, he said he tried to choose locations that had some concrete data, and places where changes are already happening.
"The overriding question was 'How is the earth changing, and how do researchers and scientists know that it's changing?'" he said.
The issue, which National Geographic editor-in-chief Bill Allen admitted in his "Letter from the Editor" would alienate some readers, marks a step forward for reporting on climate change, which most scientists have been insisting on for years, but many Americans still think is nothing more than a theory.
"That's where the state of the science is," Glick said, matter-of-factly, in a recent interview. "You'll also notice that we didn't go and find the two or three outlier skeptics."
 |
| Former Ted Scripps Fellow and freelance writer, Dan Glick |
What he found instead was an Inupiat whaling captain, a Cajun levee district head, and some scientists on a boat near Bermuda, all of whom told Glick the same thing: the climate is changing, and it will impact lives in a very real way.
On a spit of open tundra jutting out where the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas come together in northernmost Alaska sits the town of Barrow. It's "sort of a ramshackle sort of place," Glick said. But it's also a scientific and cultural outpost, and it was there that Glick met an Inupiat elder who told him how whaling, a subsistence activity for the Inupiat, has changed over his lifetime.
"I talk to you about things that I have seen," Glick recalls the man saying. He told Glick of the changes he and other hunters had observed in the ice itself, which is critical to their culture. Whalers, the man explained, have a harder time now because they can't trust traditional knowledge about ice conditions. To illustrate, the man told Glick a story about a group of whalers who got stranded on a chunk of ice—ice that betrayed them when it broke off from the mainland and floated into the ocean. The men were rescued by helicopter but the story remains, a testament to the changes wrought by global warming.
In Louisiana, Glick traveled to Bayou Lafourche, located southwest of New Orleans, where the land seems to be dissolving into the Gulf of Mexico. That impression isn't far off. Glick said it was in Bayou Lafourche that he "learned what sea level rise looks like in fast motion." It's also where he met Windell Curole, the head of the levee district, who has the improbable task of keeping that rising water under control.
Residents of southern Louisiana are learning the meaning of "subsidence"—quite literally the sinking of the earth on which they live. Subsidence is caused by sea level rise, sediments not being replenished in the Mississippi delta, and possibly also gas and oil drilling, which might be causing the ground to collapse. To battle subsidence, communities have constructed a complicated network of levees and dikes, which help control water during storm surges, with the goal of keeping water from the gulf out of the cities.
Curole is charged with deciding when people need to evacuate, when they can come back, and which gates get opened or closed to manage flooding. It's a problem that right now is pretty unique to southern Louisiana and other places that are built at or below sea level. But as sea levels rise as a result of glacial melt from climate change, the problem—and jobs like Curole's—will become a lot more common.
"He was somebody that had to deal with what was essentially going to be a lot of communities' future," Glick said.
But not all changes caused by climate change seem logical on the surface. Glick also spent a few days on a research vessel near Bermuda, talking to scientists who are measuring the temperature, salinity and other properties of the ocean water there. It's part of a larger, long-term study that's looking at how the ocean is changing as ice melts near the poles.
Glick said the biggest implication for the scientists' research is the impact all the new fresh water will have on a natural ocean cycle called thermohaline circulation. Basically, in the Atlantic Ocean warmer, saltier water moves north along the Gulf Stream and is replaced by cooler, fresher water from the Arctic. The process brings warm water and air to the north Atlantic, and helps keep Europe's climate temperate. Scientists are concerned that the influx of colder fresh water from the Arctic could disturb the circulation, effectively shutting down the Gulf Stream and actually leaving Europe colder for a while.
This might be a hard sell to some—that global warming could result in lower temperatures in some places—but Glick didn't seem to think it would be. "The earth's climatic systems are really complex," he said.
He added that in the past decade, scientists have done a lot more interdisciplinary research using data from sources as diverse as ancient ice cores, tree rings, lake sediments and stalactites. Each method has holes, he said, but all together the evidence is "very compelling" that climate change is real, and it's caused by humans.
"The convincing case is that what's happening now is anomalous," he said. "It's outside of the realm of any sort of normal pattern that can be explained without adding in these human influences."
Glick is a freelance journalist and author of two books, Powder Burn: Arson, Money and Mystery on Vail Mountain and Monkey Dancing: A Father, Two Kids, and a Journey to the Ends of the Earth, which won the Colorado Book Award for best History/Biography in 2003.
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