When Echo launched a little more than a year ago, our intent was to upend the Great Lakes basin with a journalism that looked at the environment in an innovative manner.

At the same time we vowed to remain faithful to fundamental values of fairness, accuracy, credibility.

So we’re happy to report that the Society of Professional Journalists has named an Echo report on water pollution from coal plants as a national finalist for an online in-depth journalism award.

The four-day Cleaning Coal series by Sarah Coefield, Elisabeth Pernicone, Yang Zhang and Rachael Gleason examined how clean air has come at the cost of dirty water and why coal-fired power plant waste water is poorly regulated. It previously won an SPJ regional award.

Echo is a project of Michigan State University’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism. Another Knight Center project, The Night Shift, also received SPJ recognition as a national finalist for television in-depth reporting. It was produced by Sarah Coefield, Mary Hansen, Marla Kalmbach and also was a regional SPJ winner.

Echo Editor David Poulson is the associate director of Michigan State University’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism.