hurricane katrina

These environmental reporters told you so

Florida's Piney Point is the latest predicted disaster. Maybe we should start listening to these folks?

I've been a member of a worthy non-profit, The Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ), since one year after its 1991 founding.


Every once in a while, I pester its 1,200 members to consider a special award for I-told-you-so reporting—honoring an environment reporter who shouts into the winds of political clout or simple indifference to a looming disaster.

Arguably, the best-known American example of this is Mark Schleifstein, the veteran New Orleans scribe who said his Times-Picayune boss dismissed his hurricane warnings as "disaster porn" until Hurricane Katrina nearly took New Orleans off the map.

I wrote about Schleifstein and several more exemplars in a 2017 piece for Ensia, "Forewarned."

This month, a new entry came in—one with a roughly 18 year lead time.

In 2003, St. Petersburg Times reporters Craig Pittman, Julie Hauserman, and Candace Rondeaux filed a story about gypsum "stacks," the benign-sounding name for highly acidic waste heaps from phosphate mining operations. The reporters followed a twisted tale of bankruptcies, lax government oversight, and a potentially major threat to ecologically sensitive areas of Tampa Bay. Their focus was the waste area called Piney Point.

In March, the warnings about Piney Point became reality. About one-third of the nearly half-billion gallons of highly contaminated water had leaked from the site.

When Pittman followed up on the site this year, he did so from a decidedly different platform. His 30-year career at the paper (it's the Tampa Bay Times now) ended with a staff reduction last year. He's now a columnist for the nonprofit startup Florida Phoenix.

So since no Pulitzer Prize yet exists for I-told-you-so, let's award our first mythical prize to Pittman, Hauserman, and Rondeaux. It's no comfort to journalists to be vindicated in this way, but it's a useful reminder that we often ignore their warnings.

Hall of fame

Or maybe what's needed is a Hall of Fame for environmental reporters. Environmental pursuits, whether by journalists, scientists, or activists, have enough of a history and track record that someone ought to be keeping score.

Here are some, in no particular order:

  • The late Paul MacLennan, who covered Great Lakes issues for the Buffalo News for decades, and Michael Brown of the neighboring Niagara Gazette, who reported some of the first I-told-you-so stories on a blighted neighborhood called Love Canal;
  • Phil Shabecoff, who led the beat at the New York Times in the 1980's and later founded the daily briefing Greenwire. Shabecoff has said that his removal from the NYT beat followed top-level concern that his use of the word "slaughter" to describe an annual rounding up and killing of dolphins in Japan betrayed his departure from daily journalism;
  • Beth Parke, SEJ's first and only Executive Director for its first quarter-century;
  • Tom Horton, longtime Baltimore Sun reporter and Bard of the Chesapeake Bay;
  • Rachel Carson. Of course.

It's time for environmental journalists to recognize the best of their profession, and brag a little about excellence and accuracy.

My examples are only some starting points. Email me at pdykstra@ehn.org or Tweet at @pdykstra with your picks.

Peter Dykstra is our weekend editor and columnist.

His views do not necessarily represent those of Environmental Health News, The Daily Climate, or publisher, Environmental Health Sciences.

Banner photo credit: New Orleans, September 20, 2005. Houses in the ninth ward section of the city were raised off their foundations and tossed into each other by the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina. (Credit: mad mags/flickr)

environmental justice

LISTEN: Robbie Parks on why hurricanes are getting deadlier

"In places where there are high minority populations they bear, by far, the most burden of deaths from tropical cyclones."

Dr. Robbie Parks joins the Agents of Change in Environmental Justice podcast for a bonus episode to discuss how hurricanes have become deadlier in recent years and how we can better protect vulnerable communities.

Keep reading...Show less
Senator Whitehouse & climate change

Senator Whitehouse puts climate change on budget committee’s agenda

For more than a decade, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse gave daily warnings about the mounting threat of climate change. Now he has a powerful new perch.

Governments and individuals debate: Are mandates needed to reach climate change targets?

Governments, organizations and businesses have set ambitious goals to combat climate change. But it is far from clear that those goals can be met without forcing people to do -- or not do -- certain things.

Wildfire-prone California to consider new rules for property insurance pricing

A new plan from California's insurance commissioner aims to keep the nation' stop insurers from leaving the wildfire-prone state.

UN chief warns of 'gates of hell' in climate summit, but carbon polluting nations stay silent

The United Nations chief says Earth is facing a hellish problem in climate change and its leaders still aren’t doing nearly enough to curb carbon emissions that’s causing it.

Allegheny County exec race comes as air quality decisions loom

The rival nominees for Allegheny County executive disagree on whether to frack and industry's role in air quality, among other things.

Ohio commission delays vote to frack state parks during raucous meeting

The Ohio Oil and Gas Land Management Commission approved four proposals to drill on some state lands but delayed action on fracking in Ohio state parks.
co2 pipelines republicans energy climate
Photo by the blowup on Unsplash

CO2 pipelines: The new populist Republican target

Far-right leaders are often fans of pipelines crossing the country, but when it comes to ones carrying carbon dioxide — forget it.

From our Newsroom
children nature

Opinion: When kids feel the magic of nature, they will want to protect it

Improving our quality of life starts with the simple of act of getting kids outdoors.

birds climate change

In the Gulf of Maine, scientists race to save seabirds threatened by climate change

“I could see that, if successful, the methods developed could likely help these species."

fracking economics

Appalachia’s fracking counties are shedding jobs and residents: Study

The 22 counties that produce 90% of Appalachian natural gas lost a combined 10,339 jobs between 2008 and 2021.

Marathon Petroleum y una ciudad de Texas muestran una  potencial crisis de comunicaciones sobre sustancias químicas

Marathon Petroleum y una ciudad de Texas muestran una potencial crisis de comunicaciones sobre sustancias químicas

En los últimos tres años, Marathon ha violado repetidamente la ley de Aire Limpio y tuvo tres emergencias en el semestre de febrero a julio de 2023.

WATCH: How Marathon Petroleum and one Texas city show the potential for a chemical communication crisis

WATCH: How Marathon Petroleum and one Texas city show the potential for a chemical communication crisis

Marathon in Texas City has repeatedly violated the Clean Air Act and had three emergencies in the span of a six month period.

air pollution heart attack

ER visits for heart problems plummeted after Pittsburgh coal processor shut down

Levels of one highly-toxic pollutant fell by 90% and ER visits for heart problems decreased by 42% immediately after the shutdown.

Stay informed: sign up for The Daily Climate newsletter
Top news on climate impacts, solutions, politics, drivers. Delivered to your inbox week days.