Max Blau covers health care, public health and the environment for ProPublica's South unit.
Blau was previously an independent journalist working with Georgia Health News as part of ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network, a collaboration that has investigated Georgia Power’s toxic waste disposal practices, racial disparities in COVID-19 deaths and a controversial loophole to fund nursing homes. His work has appeared in a variety of national publications, including the Atlantic, the New York Times, Politico magazine, Time the Washington Post, and Stat and Stateline, where he covered health care as a Southern correspondent. He also worked as a staff writer for CNN, Atlanta magazine and the Atlanta alt-weekly Creative Loafing. His story about a death-row doctor who built an empire from treating Georgia inmates won the SPJ Green Eyeshade Award for investigative reporting in 2020.
Bluestone Coke, owned by the family of West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, signed a consent decree that could allow its Birmingham plant to reopen under stricter oversight.
Industrial plants in Birmingham, Alabama, have polluted the air and land in its historic Black communities for over a century. In an epicenter of environmental injustice, officials continue to fail to right the wrongs plaguing the city’s north side.
Documents reveal Georgia Power went to great lengths to advocate for risky waste storage. After a ProPublica investigation exposed this practice, the EPA is trying to block the move.
The world’s largest chemical maker, BASF, produces ingredients for America’s most popular products, from soaps to surface cleaners to dishwasher detergent. Emissions from their U.S. plants elevate cancer risks for an estimated 1.5 million people.
More than a thousand people talked to ProPublica about living in hot spots for cancer-causing air pollution. Most never got a warning from the EPA. They are rallying neighbors, packing civic meetings and signing petitions for reform.
The power company failed to build a stronger system after hurricanes repeatedly pummeled Louisiana. Then Ida knocked out power for more than a week. “I don’t think it’s just Mother Nature,” said one resident. “This is neglect.”
Near America’s largest coal-fired power plant, toxins are showing up in drinking water and people have fallen ill. Thousands of pages of internal documents show how one giant energy company plans to avoid the cleanup costs.
Georgia Power paid top dollar to buy land from residents living near waste sites at its power plants. Environmentalists fear it’s a tactic to forestall the cleanup bill from new regulations for coal ash.
Ronnie Rollins used a controversial loophole to secure $300 million in bonus payments for his nonprofit nursing home chain. A federal investigation called the payments “inappropriate,” and Georgia is caught in a multimillion dollar dispute.
Of Georgia’s more than 1,100 virus deaths, 12% are from long-term care facilities in a region that holds just 3% of the population. As the state reopens, staff know that risks of exposure will only increase.
Thank you for your interest in republishing this story. You are are free to republish it so long as you do the following:
You have to credit ProPublica and any co-reporting partners. In the byline, we prefer “Author Name, Publication(s).” At the top of the text of your story, include a line that reads: “This story was originally published by ProPublica.” You must link the word “ProPublica” to the original URL of the story.
If you’re republishing online, you must link to the URL of this story on propublica.org, include all of the links from our story, including our newsletter sign up language and link, and use our PixelPing tag.
If you use canonical metadata, please use the ProPublica URL. For more information about canonical metadata, refer to this Google SEO link.
You can’t edit our material, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style. (For example, “yesterday” can be changed to “last week,” and “Portland, Ore.” to “Portland” or “here.”)
You cannot republish our photographs or illustrations without specific permission. Please contact [email protected].
It’s okay to put our stories on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories. You can’t state or imply that donations to your organization support ProPublica’s work.
You can’t sell our material separately or syndicate it. This includes publishing or syndicating our work on platforms or apps such as Apple News, Google News, etc.
You can’t republish our material wholesale, or automatically; you need to select stories to be republished individually. (To inquire about syndication or licensing opportunities, contact [email protected].)
You can’t use our work to populate a website designed to improve rankings on search engines or solely to gain revenue from network-based advertisements.
We do not generally permit translation of our stories into another language.
Any website our stories appear on must include a prominent and effective way to contact you.
If you share republished stories on social media, we’d appreciate being tagged in your posts. We have official accounts for ProPublica on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Copy and paste the following into your page to republish:
