Today's Pioneer Press front page features a story by yours truly. This is the first significant story I've reported and written on my own since I started at the Pioneer Press three years ago. The last time I did my own story was at USA Today when I wrote about Hispanic girls in sports.
This story has some history. You might remember that I wrote about leaking underground storage tanks for a major investigation in the Kansas City Star. I spent 18 months working on that story, so I learned a ton about this topic. That story talked about how regulations for underground tanks in the 1990s were flawed and that tanks were continuing to leak despite the fact that they supposedly met the requirements under the law that was intended to prevent leaks.
So about a month ago, I was shocked to learn that states are not "fixing" those rules because of the very same problems we wrote about back in 2001. Minnesota adopted their new rules last month, so I saw the perfect opportunity to get this story in the paper.
I knew that the Pioneer Press environmental reporter was tied up covering the state legislature and my knowledge of the topic would make it possible for me to get this story into the paper quicker than anybody else. So I decided to pitch it to the bosses and they loved the idea.
It was kind of fun to put my reporter hat back on again, but it also reminded me of some of the less pleasant parts of being a reporter. So tomorrow I'm going back to my CAR duties again. Although I'm helping another reporter on a major story and will do some reporting this week on that one as well. So watch for another big story in the not-too-distant future!
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