This week, WYSO and NPR member stations across the country are focusing on the search for climate solutions.
You’ll hear stories about the future of food production, sustainable agriculture, and energy. Thanks to your support of this station, that’s something we do throughout the year on WYSO. Check out some of the stories we've already done here.
One of our reporters helping to get those stories to our listeners is Adriana Martinez-Smiley, who covers the environment and Indigenous affairs. In this excerpt from WYSO Weekend, we spoke to Adriana about the work they've been doing.
Kenney: You just completed a major investigative report for us, and we're going to talk a little bit about that. But first, tell us a little bit about yourself, where your family is from.
Martinez-Smiley: Yeah. So I'm actually born and raised in Ohio. I'm originally from Hamilton, which is not far from Dayton. That's where my family is based, too. So it's kind of funny that I ended up getting a job so close to where my family is.
Kenney: That's right. Because you went to Northwestern?
Martinez-Smiley: Yes, I went to Northwestern University, which is in Evanston, Illinois. It's a suburb of Chicago, and I graduated last summer. And, you know, entering the career field, I was open to moving to a lot of places. I knew I wanted to work in public radio so that was sort of my North Star for what type of newsroom I wanted to work in. And yeah, it's really funny that this specific beat, role and a position that is so close to my family opened up at the right time.
Kenney: About the beat. So it's environment and Indigenous affairs, which is kind of unique for a reporter position. Is that what your education was leaning toward at Northwestern?
Martinez-Smiley: I just studied journalism but it didn't have a specific focus. The curriculum had a lot of emphasis on being able to use different media, because obviously the field of journalism is evolving and there's a whole bunch of different ways to tell a story. And so it wasn't necessarily a focus to report on the specific beat or even this format, audio, but it was something that, before I came to WYSO, I worked at a public radio station in New Hampshire and NHPR reporting on environment news. So I had that background in environmental reporting and public radio through that position.
Kenney: You've also got experience with WBEZ or WTTW. Tell us about that work.
Martinez-Smiley: Yeah, those are both the public media outlets based in Chicago. So WTTW is the PBS affiliate, and WBEZ is the NPR affiliate in Chicago. So those are just sort of like one off, stories that I ended up doing there. I was able to have stories published through a residency program that I had with Injustice Watch, which is an investigative reporting outlet that focuses on the criminal justice system. They have partnerships with local newsrooms.
Kenney: You just did a major investigative piece for WYSO, which I understand took months and months and several FOIA requests to get information. And this was on the battery burn. Just kind of give us a brief summary of kind of what you went through for that report.
Martinez-Smiley: I first learned about this situation in February. So it has been a long time that I had actually been doing these interviews, acquiring all of these public records, sifting through these documents to actually report out the investigation that is still available to listen to on wyso.org. In that story, in Piqua, since 2018 to 2023, there were companies that were burning and testing lithium ion batteries to basically see what conditions would allow these batteries to combust suddenly and without warning. Obviously, lithium-ion batteries are becoming a lot more relevant. You're seeing them in energy storage systems, like in solar fields and in electric vehicles, so obviously that sort of testing is important. But residents were not aware of this going on. And the way that our state has regulations around burning this material, there weren't necessarily a lot of safeguards for the residents. So there's potential exposure to the emissions from these batteries.
Kenney: Yeah. So I know this is a story that you're going to continue to watch as it plays out. What other kinds of stories are you interested in?
Martinez-Smiley: I didn't really get to touch on this yet, but the Indigenous affairs part of my beat is something that is actually new to WYSO.
From what I've learned, I am the only Indigenous affairs reporter at a public radio station. So I really like being able to emphasize that, because I think that it shows that WYSO is out here trying to tell these stories that really, really need a spotlight, and things that are developing. We're seeing things specifically around Great Council State Park actually opening, and it's something that's actually so close to our radio station here in Yellow Springs, with the Earthworks recently getting UNESCO heritage status.
You're seeing people from the removed tribes actually coming back to Ohio and creating a presence much larger than what has been able to exist in the state for a while now, reconnecting with their land here in Ohio. And so those are the type of stories that I am developing out also through the Indigenous affairs role. And obviously with environment, there is overlap with those two topics. So I think that that is why these two beats were joined together for one reporter position.
Kenney: It's got to be exciting with such a unique beat like Indigenous affairs. You're out there making new contacts and probably some of these contacts nobody has expressed interest before in their stories.
Martinez-Smiley: Yeah. It's funny that you mention that. I recently did this feature about Myaamia tribal history around prescribed fires. Prescribed fires has been something that I have been covering a little bit in Ohio. I did a story about the Prescribed Fire Council having a meeting back in December, Five Rivers MetroParks having their last prairie burn of the season. But something that I was really interested in was the fact that indigenous communities all over the world have used prescribed fires to shape the environments that they inhabited, and Ohio is not an exception to that. And so I spoke to scholars on Myaamia history, and that included people that are members of the sovereign Miami Nation out of Oklahoma. That is where the Miami tribe that is indigenous to Ohio were removed to. I even spoke to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, which they're the department that approves prescribed burns. And they mentioned there hasn't really been any interest in this topic or anything that they had even been paying attention to, whether prescribed burns from indigenous community members were occurring at all in recent times.
Kenney: So you've got a lot of potential for some great stories. You've already done some great work, and we appreciate the time and effort you're putting into your job and and the information you've provided to our listeners.
Martinez-Smiley: I love my job. I think it is such an amazing opportunity to be able to go out into the community and have people share their stories with me and trust in me to tell their stories. So, yeah, I'm very grateful to be able to hold these stories and share them with people.
