Great Lakes Echo (http://greatlakesecho.org/index.php?s=andrew+norman)
E-mail: namronwerdna@gmail.com
Norman’s stories on Echo
Formerly the managing editor of Omaha alternative newsweeklies The Reader and Omaha City Weekly, Norman recently completed an internship covering environmental legislation, lobbying and politics in Washington, D.C., for Congressional Quarterly.
Echo reporter Andrew Norman broke a big story this spring: People like beer, and the Great Lakes are full of its primary ingredient. That story has sources from some of the region’s small breweries hailing the region’s versatile water, which lends itself to a diverse set of beer styles. But beer giant Budweiser also has love for the lakes, and is once again partnering with the Biodiversity Project’s Great Lakes Forever program to sponsor their sixth annual photo contest. The contest has professional and amateur categories, and the top prize is a kayak and a Garmin navigation system. Plus, the best photo will be immortalized on history’s most timeless canvas, the beer coaster — thousands of which will be distributed to bars across the region.
A couple weeks ago Echo marked its first anniversary. The evolution has been fast, the learning curve steep. It’s hard to find the time to stop and take stock of what’s been accomplished. But here’s a good excuse:
Environmental news stories written for Great Lakes Echo and other publications of Michigan State University’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism are among those recently recognized at the 2009 Region 4 Mark of Excellence Society of Professional Journalists contest. Among the Echo winners:
Online In-Depth Reporting
First Place: Cleaning Coal – by Sarah Coefield, Elisabeth Pernicone, Yang Zhang and Rachael Gleason
Third Place: Public Pools, Public Health – by Haley Walker, Alice Rossignol and Emma Ogutu
Best Independent Online Student Publication
Second Place: Great Lakes Echo
Online Feature Reporting
Third Place: Lake Huron sinkholes – by Sarah Coefield
Recognition of the Knight Center’s print publication, EJ Magazine:
Non-Fiction Magazine Article
First Place: Food Not Waste: Three Decades at the Center of a Movement – by Haley Walker
Second Place: When Grass Isn’t Green: Marijuana farms on public lands aren’t kind to the environment – by Andrew Norman
Best Student Magazine
Second Place: EJ Magazine
Recognition of the Knight Center’s television production efforts:
Television In-Depth Reporting
First Place: The Night Shift – by Sarah Coefield, Mary Hansen, Marla Kalmbach, Lou D’Aria
Here at the Knight Center we’re proud not only of these quality reporting efforts, but of the diversity of media they represent.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is a big player in the Asian carp story. Echo writer Andrew Norman envisions a world in which the rest of the Army gets involved. And they’ve got a secret weapon. Carp bombs are fun for everyone. Here’s how to make your own.
The almost $100 billion slated to provide clean drinking water and to rebuild and develop the nation’s roads, bridges and rails is expected to be one of the federal stimulus’ biggest job creators. And it’s an area that has clear environmental ramifications. For instance, the U.S. Department of Transportation recently announced a $25 million grant for 3.4 miles of light rail to connect 12 locations from downtown Detroit to its New Center commercial district. So how stimulated are the Great Lakes states? It depends on how you look at it.
The ice is back, and it’s filling the newsites and blogosphere with echoes of the 1980s. Happily it has nothing to do with a certain rapper. No, the St. Clair River is once again stoppered by a miles-long ice jam. The last time the river was this backed up was 1984. That ice jam was 20 miles long and blocked the passage for 24 days. It was recently eyed as one of the causes for Lake Huron’s falling water levels. The new ice jam is considerably shorter (a measly 9 miles) and the ice cutters are already racing to the rescue. Still, ice jams can damage a river bed in a relatively short period of time. The river water forced under the ice cover is moving fast. Remember when you were a kid playing with the garden hose and you covered half the opening with your thumb and then chased your siblings around with the super-powered water spout? Yeah. It’s something like that. Only instead of terrorizing children, the water is scraping the river bottom clean of sediment and generally messing things up.
A Great Lakes swing state is a bit more, well, swinging, now that Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh announced he would retire this year. So what does it mean for the basin? It depends on how you link political parties to environmental protection. The retirement of Bayh, who was once rumored to be President Barack Obama’s VP choice, puts his Indiana seat in play for Republicans. Bayh has $13 million on hand for his campaign, and recent polls had him leading his Republican challengers, former Sen. Dan Coats and former congressman John Hostettler, by 20 points and 16 points respectively.
Help Echo turn the Great Lakes basin on its ear and shake up journalism.
Perhaps the greatest change you’ll notice in this Echo redesign is that reporters will ask for your help, tell you about reporting challenges and empty their notebooks of those odds and ends that otherwise never quite become stories.
But expect us to stick with the Echo core concept: We’re a news community that transcends political borders and is defined by a global resource. Check out how we intend to do an even better job of that.
Social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn make reaching sources a breeze for journalists. Navigating handlers to secure an on-the-record interview with a source, however, isn’t always so easy. While reporting a story for Great Lakes Echo about illicit marijuana production on public lands, I ran into a federal roadblock that stymied my work as a journalist and as a government watchdog. It’s a barrier that shows President Barack Obama has a lot of work to do to square his campaign promise of transparency with his administration’s actions. As the old adage says, the proof’s in the puddin’.
By Alice Rossignol
Nov. 13, 2009
There are few places where a government agency lines up for a permit just like everybody else. One of them is at the Lower Wisconsin Riverway Board. Founded in 1989, the board is made up of Wisconsin citizens who enforce a series of aesthetic regulations along 92 miles of the Wisconsin River and nearly 80,000 acres of land. “The uniqueness to having a citizen board is that it represents the people who live in the area.