“Dumped in Berger,” a three-part series collaboratively reported by The Beacon’s Ceilidh Kern and KBIA-FM’s Harshawn Ratanpal, has earned a regional Edward R. Murrow Award.

Since 1971, the Radio Television Digital News Association has been honoring outstanding work in broadcast and digital journalism with the Murrow Awards, named for the legendary CBS broadcaster.

The Beacon and KBIA, the Missouri School of Journalism’s NPR-member station, compete in Region 5, which includes Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska. Regional winners advance to the national Murrow Awards competition later this summer.

“Dumped in Berger” traced how more than 13 million pounds of hazardous powder ended up at a warehouse in Berger, Missouri, after being trucked there from Yazoo City, Mississippi. The material sat there for five years before being cleaned up. 

Across three stories, the reporting uncovered how the waste was created, how it ended up in rural Missouri, how people were unknowingly exposed to hazardous dust and how taxpayers ultimately paid millions for cleanup efforts.

The project took six months to report and involved reviewing 11 pounds of documents. At the time, The Beacon’s statewide investigative and accountability reporting was supported by Arnold Ventures.

“It’s an honor to have this series recognized. When we learned about the EPA cleanup of this site and began working our way back through the timeline, we were fixated on finding out how something like this could happen and how it impacted the people of Berger, Missouri,” Kern said.

“Thank you to everyone we spoke with, and especially the people of Berger, for helping us answer those questions. And thank you to Harshawn Ratanpal and our editors, Chris Lester of The Beacon and Stan Jastrzebski of KBIA. Without them, this project would not be what it is.”

You can read the full series here: www.thebeaconnews.org/dumped-in-berger-missouri.