Meade Prize
The Meade Prize is currently be awarded as a scholarship to a student who is studing air pollution at UCLA School of Public Health.

2006 Meade Prize Winner
The winners of the 2006 Meade Prize Clean Air Prize are Mark Grossi of the Fresno Bee and William Kelly of L.A. Weekly

In a year-long series of articles, the Fresno Bee's Mark Grossi examined the roots of the controversy that has erupted over the siting of new dairies in Fresno County and elsewhere in the Valley. A former Knight Science Journalism Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Mr. Grossi's coverage went far beyond the usual business vs. environment dynamic. For example, he showed how low interest ³pollution control loans² were actually serving to concentrate dairy operations and emission in Fresno County, one of the few jurisdictions in California where formal environmental review by county agencies is not required. Mr. Grossi also profiles the range of county governmental responses, and the projected growth of dairies in counties like Tulare, where plans call for the addition of 130,000 cows to the estimated 854,898 already there, and Kern, where 24 new dairy projects are expected to add 200,000 new cows.

Freelance writer William Kelly draws from 20 years of journalism experience in Southern California and Washington DC, and Masters in Journalism from Columbia University to give his readers the big picture. In a series of articles published throughout 2005 in the LA Weekly, Mr. Kelly provided insight into the national debate within the environmental community about technical policy vs. people power. He educated his readers about backroom Sacramento wheeling and dealing over adding corn-based ethanol to California gasoline, as well as problems related to the nation's shrinking supplies of natural gas and the consequences of the construction of new liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals - creating a temporary supply glut and gas dependency which might squeeze out renewables like solar and wind, while leaving California vulnerable to future gas shortages as well as potentially catastrophic accidents such as mile long fireballs at LNG terminals.

2005 Meade Prize
The winner of the 2005 Meade Prize is Long Beach Press-Telegram reporter Eric Johnson. Mr. Johnson won the award for his eight-day series exploring the air pollution impacts of the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach, published in February 2004. In addition to Mr. Johnson's reporting, the series featured outstanding graphics by artist Paul Penzella. Press-Telegram staff writer Kevin Butler also contributed to the series.

The series detailed the extensive diesel emissions from ships, trucks, trains and off-road engines associated with the two ports, and examined the tangled overlap of local, state, federal and international rules that leave many of these sources virtually unregulated. The series points out that, despite the sophistication of the South Coast Air Quality Management District's emissions inventory, the ports' total contribution of nitrogen oxides, particulates and other air pollutants is unknown, although regulators acknowledge it to be "sizeable" and "significant" - for example, the ports are believed to contribute over 30% of the Southland's 1,057 tons of daily nitrogen oxide emissions. The series also explored the connection between air pollution and health, pointing out chilling statistics such as the over 340,000 children who have been diagnosed with asthma in Los Angeles County alone. Finally, the series profiled solutions, costs, and technical and political obstacles to reducing port pollution.

2004 Meade Prize
The winner of the 2004 Meade Prize is Los Angeles Times Staff Writer Elizabeth Shogren. Writing for the LA Times¹ Washington DC Bureau, Ms. Shogren was awarded the Meade Prize for consistent excellence in covering federal policy developments that have been widely condemned by environmentalists as encouraging increased emissions of harmful air pollutants.

Meade Prize Founder and Selection Committee Chair Gladys Meade stated, ³Elizabeth Shogren writes with great courage and clarity about the current administration¹s attempts to dismantle the Clean Air Act.²

2003 Meade Prize
The winner of the 2003 Meade Prize is the Fresno Bee for a special report entitled "Last Gasp," published on December 15, 2002. A 24-page special section, the "Last Gasp" is a detailed examination of how air pollution in the San Joaquin Valley became some of the worst in the nation. Among the findings of investigative reporters Mark Grossi, Russell Clemings, and Barbara Anderson: air regulators had missed 19 air cleanup deadlines; agriculture was a leading polluter but largely escaped regulation; air pollution at night in the Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Parks can be worse than on the streets of Fresno; and one out of six children in Fresno County suffer from asthma, the worst rate in all of California.

"It was a superb exposé. Just look at the im-pact," said Prize Founder and Selection Com-mittee Chair Gladys Meade. The "Last Gasp" sparked an outpouring of reader responses and a wave of public concern that spurred local, regional and state officials to respond with new legislation, special hearings, and increased oversight.

2002 Meade Prize
The 2002 inaugural Meade Prize was awarded to Los Angeles Times reporter Gary Polakovic. Mr. Polakovic received the prize in honor of a series of stories published in the LA Times during 2001 that explored the scientific, human and political dimensions of the air pollution problem. Mr. Polakovic is well known to newspaper readers in Southern California ­ before covering the environmental beat for the LA Times, he wrote about environmental issues for the Riverside Press-Enterprise and the San Bernardino Sun.

"Gary Polakovic not only explains the science of why we have smog, he also reveals the political landscape and regulatory terrain as few others do," explains Gladys Meade, the prize founder and Meade prize Committe Chair. "Whether its explaining why the RECLAIM pollution trading experiment has failed in Southern California, exploring how smog and acid rain is effecting wildlife in remote parts of the Rockies, forecasting the devastating nationwide impacts of the Bush Administration's plans for nearly 2,000 new fossil fueled power plants, or giving us a glimpse of how air pollution is wrapping around the entire planet, Gary gets it. More importantly, he makes sure his readers get it."