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 legal reporting.

Marianne Lavelle, daughter of President Judge John P. and Attorney Marianne Lavelle of Lehighton, was named a winner along with Marcia Coyle and Claudia MacLachlan for the Journal.

In “Unequal Protection: The Racial Divide in Environmental Law,” the trio was able to prove what others had only surmised, that there is a racial divine in the way the federal government cleans up toxic waste sites and punisher polluters.

They conducted nearly 500 interviews of environmental and civil rights advocates, government officials and families in analyzing every environmental lawsuit in the past seven years.