Planet Princeton wins New Jersey News Commons award for local investigative reporting for sewer department series

The Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University announced the winners of the third annual New Jersey News Commons Excellence in Local News Awards on Monday.

Planet Princeton is one of seven winners. Awards were given for work by local news outlets in New Jersey in 2019 in the fields of local news innovation, collaboration, investigative reporting, campus reporting, and community engagement. An award was also given for the news partner of the year.

The New Jersey News Commons is a network of more than 280 news organizations and freelancers across New Jersey. The News Commons is the flagship project of the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University.

Planet Princeton received the “investigate local” award for our series of stories about illegal dumping at the municipal sewer department site on River Road in Princeton. Two former employees and a contractor were charged with bribery as a result of the investigation the series triggered. A top department employee was also fired. The sewer department site has been closed since the stories were published. Planet Princeton had to sue Mercer County and the municipality of Princeton for public records related to the sewer department. The municipality and county eventually handed over the records as a result of the lawsuit.

The amount of money it will cost to clean up the site is still unclear. This is an ongoing series. Planet Princeton is still following the story.

We would like to thank all the readers who supported our efforts to obtain public records and pursue this story and other important stories in 2019 by becoming paid subscribers. We would also like to thank our public records lawyer, Walter Luers, for successfully representing us in our public records case.