Wetlands issues have been prominent and contentious in Florida for a long time, and not just around the Everglades. They've received a lot of news coverage over the years. Why did you decide to undertake a comprehensive look at wetlands losses now?

Pittman: Four years ago the National Academy of Sciences put out a report called "Compensating for Wetland Losses Under the Clean Water Act." A couple of Florida people were on the panel and one alerted me, so I got a copy and read it. I was just blown away. The report is an indictment of the Corps of Engineers and the whole no net loss policy. When I found out -- from the Corps' own website -- that the Corps issues more wetland destruction permits in Florida than any other state, I knew it was a great story. Pulling it together took a lot longer than I expected, though, partly because Matt and I kept getting hit with other stories and partly because we had a lengthy Freedom of Information Act tussle with the Corps over a database of all its Florida permits.

Waite: The reason we did it was because no one else had. Most wetlands coverage is confined to a single project or a single area that a newspaper chose to write about. No one had ever tried to look at a whole statewide impact. Other than being foolishly ambitious, it only seemed natural.

What are your respective jobs at the newspaper? How did this collaboration come about and how did you divide up the work for this project? Have you worked together before?

Pittman: I've covered statewide environmental issues for the Times for five years -- Everglades, manatees, phosphate mining, etc. When I found out that the Corps logs a Geographic Information Systems point for each wetlands permit, it seemed like a smart idea to use the Corps' GIS data to map wetlands destruction. But I didn't know anything about GIS. Our technology trainer told me Matt, who was then working in one of our bureaus, was Mr. GIS, so I called him. Soon after, Matt was promoted to be the Times' computer-assisted reporting guru here in St. Pete, which made doing this project more feasible. After we got the Corps' GIS data, it turned out to be totally unreliable, so Matt came up with another way to go after the story, using satellite imagery analysis.

Waite: I am technically a metro GA, but my assignment is to use computer-assisted reporting to get stories into the paper. Craig had a great idea and he asked me how we could do it. It was a project I could love because it was challenging and something I'd never done before. We divided up the work by admitting that there were certain things that one of us wasn't going to do as well as the other. I don't have the sources that Craig's years on his beat had given him. And he doesn't have 10 years of learning on computer-assisted reporting. So we set off on two tracks: Craig on pulling together documents and sources, me on analyzing databases and satellite images. Still, I went with Craig on as many face-to-face interviews as I could, and Craig now knows more about satellite imagery than he ever wanted to.

Pittman: He even coached me through doing my first spreadsheet.

The project includes traditional elements of investigative reporting, such as documentation of elected officials' efforts to pressure regulators on behalf of special interests. It also includes something quite different -- your own findings about cumulative wetlands losses, based on an analysis of satellite images. How did you decide to do this? Did either of you have pertinent technical training or experience beforehand?

Waite: Truthfully, no. All we knew was that traditional reporting wasn't going to get us to a "total acres lost" figure because the agencies that are supposed to track that don't. And we learned that using permitting data to try and create that on our own was pointless because the permitting data is incomplete and flawed. Remote sensing seemed like the only way we could answer the question of how many acres have been lost. I started reading and researching, and I checked out classes at the University of South Florida. Through the Times' tuition reimbursement program, I enrolled in a USF course at the same time the project was starting. I started doing the analysis through what I learned on my own, but was continually coming back from class having learned something new that caused me to change directions. After the first class ended, I enrolled in another more advanced class. My professor, Barnali Dixon, was one of the experts who reviewed our methodology and she was an invaluable source of ideas and advice throughout the project.

Was it harder to carry out the satellite-image study than you'd thought it would be? What were some problems you encountered in carrying it out –- either expected or surprising?

Waite: I think I guessed early on that the satellite analysis, at the pace I was going, would take two months. It ended up taking ten. Not having any idea how to do this before we started, every step was a learning experience. I think the most gut-wrenching surprise we encountered can serve as a useful warning for anyone wanting to follow in our footsteps. After I completed our analysis of all the wetlands in the state, I figured that we could compare one image year to another and -- Voila! -- we'd have a total acres lost figure. When I did that, I found huge amounts of wetlands loss -- way more than we ever expected. But, on closer inspection, I found huge wetlands loss areas that paralleled the coastline. Turns out, in one image, the tide was out, and in the other one the tide was in. So we realized that our first thoughts on this were simplistic. Just comparing two images might get us a number, but it wouldn't be a reliable one.

Pittman: After we finished freaking out, Matt came up with the alternative that we used in the story: analyzing where wetlands had been converted to urbanization -- homes, stores, roads, parking lots etc.

Why did you decide to publish a detailed, technical explanation of the satellite-image methodology, complete with bibliography? It seems that other reporters, considering doing something along these lines, could get some valuable pointers here.

Waite: It's simple, really: why would you believe a satellite analysis done by a newspaper reporter? Let's face it, media credibility is almost an oxymoron. So I felt that in order to do this right, we had to take a more academic approach. We had to publish our methodology, we had to be up front about how we did this and we had to show our hand, so to speak. We spent a good deal of time talking about how someone could attack our methods and cast doubt on our figures. So we went with a method that was conservative. Experienced experts reviewed it. And in case anyone had any questions about it, we ran a layman's explanation in the paper for the average reader, and posted the longer, more academic explanation on our website. So far, no one has challenged or even questioned what we found.

The articles are rich with on-the-record quotes from current and former Army Corps of Engineers officials criticizing their own agency's wetlands-regulation efforts. Was it difficult to persuade these individuals to be so candid?

Pittman: Not really. They know the system doesn't do what it's supposed to and were relieved to talk about their frustration. The one guy who was kind of difficult was John Hall, who for 15 years had overseen the Corps' regulatory program in Florida. I interviewed him seven times over the course of a year, six of them over the phone and once in person with Matt and a tape recorder. In the first interview he was very didactic and defensive. But by the fourth or fifth interview, he was much more open in discussing the program's failings. He could tell we had done our homework and didn't just ask him dopey, confrontational stuff.

Wetlands regulation is a highly complex issue, with legal and technical details that are often pretty arcane, but you presented your findings in ways that I found consistently engaging and understandable. Did you confront some particularly memorable or instructive challenges in achieving this? Did you learn some lessons that you'll keep in mind, which might help other reporters?

Pittman: Probably the big lesson is: Be prepared to do lots of rewriting, and don't be afraid to drop your attribution. The first-day mainbar that appeared in the paper was the 11th version of that story. Originally we quoted quite a few non-Corps experts to bolster what we were saying, but through the various rewrites we wound up pruning nearly all of them out so we could keep all the quotes from Corps employees that were so powerful. The editing process wasn't pleasant, but it was necessary. Over and over our state editor, Tom Scherberger, worked with us on simplifying the explanations while still keeping them accurate. Our executive editor, Neil Brown, went through the stories too and marked a lot of things that needed clarifying. The result was something we were all happy with. One thing that helped is that we didn't have to take time in the stories to explain a lot about how a wetland works and why it's important. Instead -- I think this was Tom's idea -- we ran a large graphic that did that for us, and in a far livelier way than mere words on the page. The photo page that ran the first day also helped draw people into the stories and make them realize that a swamp is something to be valued.

On the newspaper's website, the series is accompanied by a number of interactive elements, including explanatory animations and an audio file of comments by one key source. Were these things part of the project planning from the start, or did the ideas arise as the work unfolded?

Waite: The best answer is: sort of. From the outset, we planned on a significant web presence and included our web staff in most of the staff meetings where we discussed the project. We had plans for video, audio, there was even talk at one time of building an interactive map server so people could see satellite imagery of their own areas. But then video didn't get edited and the map server wouldn't play ball. In the end, two of the most crucial web elements -- the aerial shots of the Wal-Mart and the subdivision built on wetlands, and the audio clips from John Hall -- didn't come together until a week before publication.

What kind of response has the series gotten, from the public or from officials? Do you plan to follow up on your findings in any continuing way?

Pittman: We have been, pardon the pun, swamped. Lots of readers were outraged and asked what they could do about it. We received several e-mails from current and recently retired federal employees who wanted to say thanks for telling the truth. Some other newspapers jumped in with their own editorial comments. The Miami Herald's Carl Hiaasen wrote a pretty fiery column, for instance. We have had no official response -- not from the White House, the Corps or Congress -- unless you count the permits the Corps suddenly denied when we told them we were going to press. As for follow-ups: You bet. Stay tuned.

See: "Vanishing Wetlands," the St. Petersburg Times' investigation.