Lax rules for disposal of drilling waste lead to injection of other toxic materials into the earth

One of the trucks, after it was enveloped by
flames fed by fumes from injection-well waste.
(Chemical Safety Board photo)

In January 2003, two tanker trucks exploded, killing three workers after fumes from what was supposed to be waste saltwater from injection wells ignited and burned in Rosharon, Tex. What the workers were really unloading, to be buried deep inside the earth, were thousands of gallons of volatile materials, including benzene and other flammable hydrocarbons. "What happened that day at Rosharon," explains ProPublica reporter Abrahm Lustgarten, "was the result of a significant breakdown in the nation’s efforts to regulate the handling of toxic waste."

"The site at Rosharon is what is known as a 'Class 2' well," Lustgarten writes. "Such wells are subject to looser rules and less scrutiny than others designed for hazardous materials. Had the chemicals the workers were disposing of that day come from a factory or a refinery, it would have been illegal to pour them into that well. But regulatory concessions won by the energy industry over the last three decades made it legal to dump similar substances into the Rosharon site -- as long as they came from drilling. Injection wells have proliferated over the last 60 years, in large part because they are the cheapest, most expedient way to manage hundreds of billions of gallons of industrial waste generated in the U.S. each year.''

ProPublica has analyzed records summarizing more than 220,000 well inspections conducted between late 2007 and late 2010, including more than 194,000 for Class 2 wells. This most recent installment of by the independent, nonprofit news agency on U.S. injection wells had reporters examining federal audits of state oversight programs, interviewing dozens of experts and exploring court documents, case files, and the evolution of underground disposal law over the past 30 years. The report is exhaustive and includes several links showing that fundamental safeguards are sometimes being ignored or circumvented by use of the Class 2 rules. (Read more) For a state-by-state count of unauthorized, overpressurized and leaking injection wells, go here.

Nominations due Oct. 1 for Gish Award for courage, tenacity and integrity in rural journalism

The Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues seeks nominations by Oct. 1 for the Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, tenacity and integrity in rural journalism. Last year's winners were Stanley Nelson (right) and the weekly Concordia Sentinel of Ferriday, La., for investigating an unsolved murder from the civil-rights era, naming and interviewing a living suspect. (Read more)

The award is named for Tom and Pat Gish, who published The Mountain Eagle in Whitesburg, Ky., for more than 51 years. Tom died in 2008; Pat has health issues but remains publisher, and their son Ben is editor. The Gishes have withstood advertiser boycotts, business competition, declining population, personal attacks, and even the burning of their office to give their readers the kind of journalism often lacking in rural areas. The family won the 2010 Eugene Cervi Award from the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors, and Tom and Pat Gish were the first winners of the award named for them.

Other winners of the Gish award have been the Ezzell family of The Canadian (Tex.) Record, in 2007; Jim Prince and Stanley Dearman, current and former publishers of The Neshoba Democrat of  Philadelphia, Miss., in 2008; Samantha Swindler, editor-publisher of the Headlight Herald in Tillamook, Ore., in 2010 for work as editor of the Corbin, Ky., Times-Tribune and managing editor of the Jacksonville (Tex.) Daily Progress.

The Institute seeks nominations that measure up, in major respects, to the previous winners. Nominatons should explaining how the nominees show the kind of exemplary courage, tenacity and integrity that the Gishes demonstrated. Documentation does not have to accompany the nomination, but is helpful in choosing finalists, and additional documentation may be neded.

Nomination letters should be postmarked by Oct. 1 and mailed to: Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, 122 Grehan Building, University of Kentucky, Lexington KY 40506-0042. Questions may be directed to Institute Director Al Cross at 859-257-3744 or al.cross@uky.edu.

Michigan county's papers among many winners in National Newspaper Association's annual contest

Not only does Allegan County, Michigan (Wikipedia map), have more than one newspaper, it has two of the best, according to the judges in the National Newspaper Association's 2012 Better Newspaper Contest. And they think Jack "Miles" Ventimiglia of Warrensburg, Mo., is both a fine editorial and feature writer (and maybe a headline writer, too). Here are the winners in selected categories and circulation classes:

Best Local News Coverage
Circulation less than 3,000: Delano (Minn.) Herald Journal; second, The Commercial Record, Allegan, Mich.
Circ. 3,000‐5,999: Allegan County News, Allegan, Mich.; second, The Barrow Journal, Winder, Ga.
Circ. 6,000 or more: Washington (Mo.) Missourian; second, The N'West Iowa Review, Sheldon.

Best Investigative or In‐Depth Story or Series
Daily: Wyoming Tribune Eagle, Cheyenne, stories on Niobrara oil boom by Shauna Stephenson, Michael Smith and Angela St. Clair. The Grass Valley Union of Northern California won second place for a series on a bank that federal officials closed.
Non-daily, circ. 10,000 or more: Bill Rodgers, Rio Grande Sun, Espanola, N.M., for "Loopholes Plague State Sex Offender Registry."
Non‐daily, circ. 3,000‐9,999: Steve Ranson, Lahontan Valley News and Fallon Eagle Standard, Fallon, Nev., for "Destination Southwest Asia," about local troops in Afghanistan. Michael Higdon designed the pages.
Non‐daily, circ. under 3,000: Luige del Puerto, Arizona Capitol Times, Phoenix, for a series on birthright-citizenship legislation.

Best Editorial
Circ. 3,000‐5,999: Jack "Miles" Ventimiglia, Daily Star‐Journal, Warrensburg, Mo., for "State's obese House offers gobs of fat to cut."
Circ. under 3,000: Steve Haynes, Oberlin (Kan.) Herald, for "A whole lot of good ideas can threaten our freedom."

Best Editorial Page(s): Circ. 6,000 or more: Ellsworth (Me.) American; under 6,000: The Hinsdalean, Hinsdale, Ill.

Community Service: The Las Cruces (N.M.) Bulletin, "Las Cruces: A Photographic Journey;" second, The Barrow Journal, Winder, Ga., coverage of Barrow County budget crisis; third, The Blackshear (Ga.) Times, "The New War / Just One Pill / Bad medicine is big business / Drug net nabs ten / Twelve arrested in drug roundup." (The Times has a great motto: "Liked by many, cussed by some, read by them all.")

Best Agricultural Story under 6,000 circ.: Jack "Miles" Ventimiglia, Daily Star-Journal, Warrensburg, Mo., for "The Grape Depression; Raisin Hell: Heat destroys grape crop." Maybe the best headline, too? No, that's an overall award, and it went to the Wyoming Tribune Eagle. (There are no circulation or frequency divisions for headlines.) Second place went to the N'West Iowa Review, a weekly.

Awards for general excellence will be announced at the NNA convention in Charleston, S.C., in early October. But you might be able to calculate them from a list of all the winners, available here.

Reporter who broke Penn State abuse story offers lessons, including: 'People can be good at lying'

Harrisburg Patriot-News reporter Sara Ganim, 24, right, learned a big lesson while covering the Penn State sex-abuse scandal that has landed former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky on trial this week. "People can be good at lying," she said during a speech at the annual convention of Investigative Reporters & Editors, reports Ted Gest of The Crime Report.

Ganim has won several awards for her coverage of the scandal, including a Pulitzer Prize this April. She told IRE members that she wasn't handed the story of Sandusky's wrong-doing and had to go after it with "old-school, knocking-on-doors journalism," Gest reports. It took her more than 18 months to compile the bits and pieces of reporting into a solid story that resulted in the allegations that Sandusky abused several boys over several years.

Ganim didn't name the sources who lied to her during that time, but said she had a two-hour conversation with someone that was initially convincing. Later, she found out the information was "fabricated" and made her think "This does not add up," Gest writes. An original source told her that the source's tip wasn't true, but she followed it anyway.

She said The Associated Press got ahead of her at one point, but by returning to her original sources, including mothers of some alleged victims, she was able to stay ahead of her competition. Ganim had recently been hired by the Patriot-News as a police reporter, but her boss was willing to let her work on the Sandusky story full-time. As a bit of advice to those at the conference, she said they should find employers who support good investigative reporting, because many wouldn't have that much faith in a new reporter. (Read more)

Fellowships send rural journalists to IRE Computer-Assisted Reporting Boot Camp; apply by June 22

Friday, June 22 is the deadline for rural journalists to apply for a competitive fellowship to attend the Investigative Reporters and Editors Computer-Assisted Reporting Boot Camp Aug 5-10 in Columbia, Mo. The fellowship includes a one-year membership in IRE and up to $350 reimbursement for expenses.

These fellowships are made possible through the generosity of Daniel Gilbert, left, who used the skills he learned at a CAR Boot Camp to write a Pulitzer Prize-winning expose of the mismanagement of southwest Virginia natural-gas royalties for the Bristol Herald Courier. That work also won him the Scripps Howard Award for community journalism, and he donated its $10,000 prize to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues to create a fund for the fellowships. The Scripps Howard Foundation matched his gift, and the state of Kentucky matched both gifts, allowing two fellowships per year. Gilbert now covers oil and gas for The Wall Street Journal.

Kate Martin of the Skagit Valley Herald, in Mt. Vernon, Wash., was the inaugral IRE fellow. She says thanks to the CAR boot camp "I am no longer at the mercy of my sources to look up a figure or fact for me. I can have them send me the source file and work with it on my own." (Read more)

The fellowship is available to journalists who work for news organizations with daily circulation less than 40,000 whose geographic coverage or circulation is primarily rural, or a broadcast station not in the top 100 markets as defined by Nielsen Inc. and has a mainly rural coverage and circulation area; or an online publication that has demonstrated an abiding interest in covering issues in rural areas. “Rural” is defined as outside a standard metropolitan statistical area.

Applicants must submit a resume, a letter of support from the news organization, three clips showcasing investigative work, and a statement of interest. Preference will be given to applicants to outline a project that include the need to analyze databases. For more details and an application form, click here.