The monthly journalism award.

Judy Pasternak

The Los Angeles Times 

Nov. 19-Nov. 22, 2006

It's often noted that the poor suffer most from environmentally irresponsible land use. In a four-part series called "Blighted Homeland," Los Angeles Times reporter Judy Pasternak exposes a particularly horrific example. During the Cold War, mining companies worked tirelessly to extract uranium from parts of the Navajo Nation, home to 180,000 people spread sparsely over parts of Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico. When the companies were done mining, they failed to clean up after themselves, leaving behind blast pits and piles of radioactive railings, sand, and crushed rock.

The pits filled with radioactive water, from which Navajos and their animals drank; children played near the tailings; and their parents used the sand and crushed rock to build radioactive dwellings. The results were disastrous, including skyrocketing cancer rates, dying livestock, and deformed children, many of whom didn't survive until adulthood.

Pasternak's reporting encompasses both the families devastated by living on polluted land and the repeated neglect of the mining companies and federal regulators. But perhaps most distressing is her account of the Navajo leadership's reaction. Lacking money to clean the afflicted sites, they concealed the contamination from those most endangered by it.