Earlier this year, the smoke plume that rose from a fire at the world’s largest battery facility in Monterey County hovered to the east over Elkhorn Slough and Hester Marsh.

Immediately, scientists from San Jose State University’s Moss Landing Marine Laboratories rushed to analyze soil and water samples and found dramatic increases in battery metals. Last week, that research was published in the peer-reviewed journal Scientific Reports.

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Ruth Dusseault is an investigative reporter and multimedia journalist focused on environment and energy. Her position is supported by the California local news fellowship, a statewide initiative spearheaded by UC Berkeley aimed at supporting local news platforms. While a student at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism (c’23), Ruth developed stories about the social and environmental circumstances of contaminated watersheds around the Great Lakes, Mississippi River and Florida’s Lake Okeechobee. Her thesis explored rights of nature laws in small rural communities. She is a former assistant professor and artist in residence at Georgia Tech’s School of Architecture, and uses photography, film and digital storytelling to report on the engineered systems that undergird modern life.