The Tyee's reporting on a grassroots rebellion pitting rural private property owners against mining companies and their prospectors has been named a finalist for a Jack Webster Foundation Award for Community Reporting. The reporters who combined on the five-part series are Kendyl Salcito and Tom Barrett.

In 2002, the B.C. government amended the Mineral Tenure Act to allow prospectors wider access to private property, even to the point of drilling close to family homes, leaving dangerous holes on the property, and proceeding with toxic mining without the consent of the property owner and the community. An outraged group of ranchers and other citizens claim they've been stripped of basic property rights, while two successive B.C. ministers of mining have claimed the law is fine -- until the government amended the law in July of 2007.

The Tyee broke the story of a Vernon-area conflict that catalyzed the formation of the activist BC Landowners Rights Group, and, almost solely last year, pursued the larger story and issues, bringing to light similar cases. Along the way, the story sizzled on blogs around North America, and Jon Stewart's Daily Show even came calling, trying to set up an interview with the minister of mining.

Some of the reporting has already received accolades. Kendyl Salcito was given the David S. Barr Award for social justice journalism for her report "War Brewing Over Mining Rights in Rural BC," which ran in The Tyee on June 14, 2006. Salcito chronicled the tense standoff between ranchers in the Vernon area and a self-proclaimed prospector who roamed and spray-painted markings on their property.

The Webster awards, named for the late, famed B.C. journalist Jack Webster, are the top journalism awards for B.C.-based television, radio and print media. The winners will be announced on Oct. 22.

Other finalists in the community reporting category are Derek Spalding and Allison Cross of the Nanaimo Daily News for "Designing Babies" and Sandy Heimlich-Hall, Bill O'Donovan, Doug Collins, Tim Peeling, Susan Edgell, Kyle Donaldson, Jason Trout, Kent Simmonds, Tom Konopski, Marcel Chelkowski, Mel Rothenburger, Susan Duncan, Mike Cornell, Cam Fortems, Robert Koopmans, Jason Hewlett, Michelle Young, Mike Youds, Catherine Litt, Murray Mitchell and Keith Anderson of the Kamloops Daily News & CFJC TV 7 for "Seeing Red: The Pine Beetle Epidemic."

For a list of finalists in all Jack Webster Foundation Award categories, go here.

The Tyee series "BC's New War over Private Property Rights" includes these articles:

• 'War Brewing' over Mining Rights in Rural BC
  Infuriated landowners rally to regain control of their property. A special report. By Kendyl Salcito
• Mining Minister Responds to Tyee Story on Land Disputes
  And our reporter replies to his letter. By Bill Bennett
• Hot Summer Where Prospector and Landowners Square Off
  Minister reportedly sees 'holes' in mining laws. By Kendyl Salcito
• A Rancher's Radioactive Hell
  Joe Falkoski says he's being forced by bad laws to allow toxic mining on his land. A special report. By Kendyl Salcito
• Ranchers' Revolt Hits Legislature
  BC Libs accused of 'stripping landowner rights.' By Tom Barrett
• Attack of the Gravel Pits
  Okanagan paradise becoming 'a crater on the moon.' By Tom Barrett