Ken Ward Jr.

Ken Ward Jr. is a distinguished fellow in ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network. Previously, he was the longtime environmental and investigative reporter at The Charleston Gazette and Gazette-Mail. Ward worked as part of ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in 2018 on a series about West Virginia’s natural gas industry and in 2019 and 2020 on an investigation of the business empire of the state’s governor, Jim Justice. A West Virginia native, Ward is also co-founder of Mountain State Spotlight, a statewide nonprofit civic news organization. In 2018, he received a MacArthur Fellowship – the so-called “genius grant” – for “revealing the human and environmental toll of natural resource extraction in West Virginia and spurring greater accountability among private stakeholders.”

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Triana Energy

Triana Energy operated in the Marcellus Shale during the boom’s early expansion, navigating leasing, drilling, and eventual acquisition in a fast-moving market. In a 2009 case in West Virginia, landowners who sold natural gas to Chesapeake and its predecessors — including Triana Energy, NiSource Inc., and Columbia Natural Resources — alleged they were cheated out of portions of their royalty payments. In shale’s rapid ascent, corporate timing and contract terms often moved just as quickly as the drilling rigs.

Source: Triana Energy (2010) Read More

New WVU-Va Tech study links water quality and cancer deaths in West Virginia coalfields

West Virginians who live near streams polluted by coal mining are more likely to die of cancer, according to a first-of-its kind study published by researchers at West Virginia University and Virginia Tech.

Source: The Charleston Gazette | Coal Tattoo (2010) Read More

Breaking news: EPA vetoes Spruce Mine permit

…The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has vetoed the largest single mountaintop removal permit in West Virginia history.

Source: The Charleston Gazette | Coal Tattoo (2011) Read More