Much rural reporting in that recognized by annual awards from Society of Environmental Journalists

The 2009-2010 winners for ninth annual Awards for Reporting on the Environment, given by the Society of Environmental Journalists, include several of rural interest that swept the investigative-reporting category. Charles Duhigg's "Toxic Waters" series for The New York Times won first place; read our previous coverage of the series here. Abrahm Lustgarten, Joaquin Sapien and Sabrina Shankman of ProPublica won second place for their series of stories on the risks of natural-gas drilling. You can read coverage of that series here. Third place went to Ron Seely of the Wisconsin State Journal for his series "Who's Watching the Farm?" It "took on the big factory farm lobby, exposing weaknesses in government regulation and enforcement that are putting important water resources — and the citizens who rely upon them — at risk," SEJ said.

Kera Abraham of the Monterey County Weekly received first place honors in the Small Market Print Reporting category for the series "Green vs. Green: Environmentalists Duke It Out." You can read her stories about both sides of various environmental debates here, here and here. Other winners of rural interest included reports on coal: The documentary "Coal: Dirty Past, Hazy Future," from Michigan Public Radio and The Environmental Report, which won second place in the Beat/In-Depth Radio Reporting category, and the two-part series "Powering a Nation: The Coal Story" from Sara Peach, Jenn Hueting, Monica Ulmanu, Chris Carmichael of the University of North Carolina, which won the Student Reporting category. (Read more)