10 given Heinz Awards for environmental work

A photographer who took more than 500,000 photographs documenting global warming worldwide is among 10 people who were named Heinz Award winners Tuesday.

This year's awards recognized environmental challenges. The awards each come with a $100,000 prize.

Photographer James Balog, of Boulder, Colo., won for his photographs called Extreme Ice Survey, in which he traveled the world taking hundreds of thousands of pictures of glaciers at each hour of daylight. Balog used 39 cameras which he adapted with materials from a local hardware store.

The Pittsburgh-based Heinz Family Foundation has presented the awards since 1994 in memory of Sen. John Heinz III, heir to the Heinz food fortune, who died in a 1991 plane crash. The awards will be presented at a private ceremony in November in Washington, D.C.

Other recipients include:

-Frederick vom Saal, of Colombia, Mo. Vom Saal was recognized for discovering that exposure to common chemicals such as bishphenol A, known widely as BPA, can cause health problems. Vom Saal's work resulted in most stores removing items containing BPA, such as some baby bottles, from shelves.

-Cary Fowler, of Rome, Italy. Fowler was recognized for creating the Global Seed Vault, where one third of the world's seed varieties are being preserved. Fowler believes his work has shown that it's important to preserve the seeds because a lack of plant population diversity weakens food security.

-Terrence Collins, of Pittsburgh, Pa. He was honored for discovering ways to mitigate toxic waste and biological agents and for teaching a new generation of scientists as a professor at Carnegie Mellon University's Institute for Green Science.

-Gretchen Daily, of Stanford, Calif. Daily was recognized for her work to protect natural ecosystems. Daily codeveloped InVEST, a software program that identifies ecological assets and their financial value, which is helping decision makers invest more wisely in environmental programs.

-Daniel Sperling, of Davis, Calif. Sperling was recognized for his work in advancing transportation and energy research as a founding director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis. He also work on the passage of California's Low Carbon Fuel Standard, which measures greenhouse gases.

-Elizabeth Kolbert, of Williamstown, Mass. A staff writer for The New Yorker, Kolbert was recognized for her environmental journalism, which has included reporting on the disappearance of bees, Arctic ice caps and others threatened with extinction.

-Michael Oppenheimer, of Princeton, N.J., and New York, N.Y. Oppenheimer, director of the Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy at Princeton University, was recognized for his work on the effects of global warming and air pollution and in promoting policies to prevent future harm.

-Richard Feely, of Seattle, Wash. Feely, a scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, was recognized for studying ocean acidification caused by rising carbon dioxide. Feely has gone on more than 50 expeditions to prove that rising acidity poses a huge threat to the ocean.

-Lynn Goldman, of Washington, D.C., and Silver Spring, Md. Goldman, dean of the School of Public Health and Health Services at George Washington University, was honored for her work on the dangers posed by toxic chemicals. Goldman is a pediatrician and epidemiologist who has studied how chemicals effect newborns and has developed programs to protect people from chemical contaminants.