Our 2012 collaboration with EarthFix and Oregon Public Broadcasting, "Clean Water: The Next Act" earned a special recognition citation from the Knight-Risser Prize for Western Environmental Journalism committee. The top prize went to the Sacramento Bee for its outstanding reporting on the killing of millions of predators and other animals by a little-known agency inside the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
From the Knight-Risser website:
The Knight-Risser prize places a premium on stories that expose undiscovered or covered-up problems, explain complex solutions in ways that can be put to use, and help readers understand the broader significance of the issues, beyond the immediate details of the stories at hand.
In announcing the prize, the Knight-Risser judges commended "Clean Water: The Next Act" for its "innovative uses of text, video and audio to give people wide access to information about the state of U.S. rivers, lakes, and bays since passage of the federal Clean Water Act 40 years ago."
Winners in recent years include Lewis Kamb, an InvestigateWest co-founder and collaborator on Center of Detention, and a trio of Seattle Times investigative reporters — Hal Bernton, Justin Mayo and Steve Ringman — for their series on how logging led to landslides in southwestern Washington.
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Forest collaboratives formed in the wake of the Pacific Northwest’s “Timber Wars” have become major power players operating largely out of the public eye
Gary "Chris" Twombley was put on administrative leave in December 2023
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