A former Lehighton resident is among a trio of writers for the National Law Journal of Washington, D.C., who will receive the prestigious George Polk Award for 1992 in legal reporting.

Marianne Lavelle, daughter of President Judge John P. and Attorney Marianna Lavelle of Lehighton, was named a winner of the award for investigative work on race issues in environmental law.

In “Unequal Protection: The Racial Divide in Environmental Law,” Lavelle and fellow writers, Marcia Coyle and Claudia MacLachlan, were able to prove what others had only surmised, a racial divide in the way the federal government cleans up toxic waste sites and punishes polluters.