Louisville Public Media has received a grant of $40,000 to “build a consortium of public radio stations throughout the region interested in producing environmental news and features and sharing them with others stations” in conjunction with LPM’s Ohio River Radio Project.

Since Kentucky is a veritable ground-zero in the fight against Big Coal, we’re uniquely poised to offer some of the best stories regarding the heavy toll (human and environmental) of the unsustainable mining practices that have almost become a kind of heritage to some, a life-destroying reality for others (human or otherwise). The money will go a long way toward chronicling the environmental health of the Bluegrass at a time when “environmentalism” isn’t as dirty a word as it used to be.

The grant was awarded by the San Francisco-based Energy Foundation, which is in turn funded by a large swath of other like-minded, green-centric non-profits, and its implementation will be directed by LPM’s Kristin Espeland.

At a time when the journalism industry is contracting hard, such a grant offers a glimmer of hope for another class of endangered species: the news-gathering reporter. So perhaps a side-effect of this coming “Green Economy” may result in an explosion of Green Journalism. Granted, some have posited that this new mode of reportage is little more than a passing fad, but it’s good news for the Commonwealth, regardless.