Dan Egan receives Vallentyne outreach award

For IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 18, 2017

Contacts: Tomas Höök, IAGLR Past-President, [email protected]; Christine Manninen, Communications & Outreach Committee Chair, [email protected]

DETROIT — Dan Egan, an author and reporter with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, was honored with the John R. (Jack) Vallentyne Award at the 60th Annual Conference of the International Association for Great Lakes Research.

The award goes to those individuals or groups who have contributed substantially to educating the public and informing policymakers about Great Lakes issues, leading to protection and restoration of the great lakes of the world. The award is named after the late Vallentyne, a distinguished scientist who dedicated decades of work to education and outreach.

“It is rare to find a reporter like Dan who pursues Great Lakes issues in depth,” says Val Klump, professor and dean at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Freshwater Sciences. “This has been an enormous plus for the public in informing them on the complexity of the Great Lakes and the tremendous impact humans have had and are having on these vulnerable waters.

“Dan’s articles are thoroughly researched. He carefully checks his facts and figures, and the conclusions that can and should be drawn from them,” Klump added.

The thoroughness of Dan’s reporting has made him a finalist twice (in 2013 and 2010) for a Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for his Great Lakes series in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. A graduate of the Columbia Journalism School, he has won the Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Award, John B. Oakes Award, AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award, and J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award.

Dan recently published a book, The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, which highlights the challenges of invasive species, algae blooms, declines in native fish species and threats to drinking water. His most recent special series “Oil and Water,” published in January 2017, was a comprehensive series on petroleum transport in the region.

“In this day and age of declining newspapers and cuts in staff, Dan has remained, and indeed excelled, in reporting on Great Lakes issues,” says John Gannon, scientist emeritus, U.S. Geological Survey. “The impact of his body of Great Lakes reporting in improving comprehension of complex scientific and political to a wide audience is outstanding.”

Dan’s work has spanned decades, focusing on issues that are important to the entire Great Lakes basin. “His ability to write about complex issues in a way that allows readers to understand the key choices that need to be made means that he is extremely effective at getting messages out to concerned policymakers, stakeholders, and the general public,” notes John Dettmers, fishery management program director at the Great Lakes Fishery Commission.