As a ski patroller, Sarah Null fired explosives at snow-laden Sierra mountainsides to trigger avalanches. As a UC Davis geography student, she launched a bombshell into California water politics — a master's thesis on the feasibility of draining Hetch Hetchy Reservoir with minimal harm to downstream cities and farms.

That detonation launched an avalanche as well — one of public debate, led by Tom Philp, an editorial writer at The Sacramento Bee with a love of the high Sierra and long experience reporting on environmental and water-policy issues. Last summer and fall, with Null's thesis as a starting point, Philp wrote a series of columns and editorials that argued for undamming and restoring the once-spectacular Hetch Hetchy Valley.

On Monday, that series won Philp and The Sacramento Bee the highest honor of the journalism profession — the Pulitzer Prize — for editorial writing. And when Philp's colleagues toasted him with sparkling cider in the Bee's pressroom, Sarah Null and her faculty adviser, Jay Lund, were there, invited by Philp to join the celebration. (Also present was Philp's wife, Lisa Lapin, who is UC Davis' assistant vice chancellor for university communications and responsible for Dateline UC Davis.)

"I couldn't have done this without Jay and Sarah," Philp said in an interview minutes before the Pulitzer announcement. "Their work was objective research coming from a respected third party — UC Davis. It was crucial."

"Working with Tom was great. He went to a lot of trouble to make sure the story was right," Lund said after learning that Philp had won the prize. "When he first called us last spring, he said he liked the thesis and wanted us to describe it for the front piece of a series of Bee editorials. I said to myself, 'Gosh, this could be huge.' "

Was Lund concerned about putting a graduate student into the brutal arena of California water fights? He chuckled. "Not really. Sarah is a very brave person. You get a sense of the sort of person she is when you look at her resume and see she's got a license to throw bombs."

The many long conversations with Null and Lund that followed helped Philp understand the Hetch Hetchy system and informed his articles, which began on Aug. 22, 2004. On Aug. 29, a long interview with the UC Davis researchers was published in the Bee's Forum section, illustrated with maps of the Hetchy water distribution network and a photograph of Null and Lund.

In that story, Philp introduced CALVIN (for California Value Integrated Network), a computer model Lund developed to analyze water supplies and delivery. In an accompanying editorial, Philp wrote, "Using state and federal dollars, the University of California, Davis, invented CALVIN in 2001 to calculate how changes would affect a water system. It has come in handy in other California water quandaries thanks to its dispassionate, outside-the-box view of the world. … CALVIN, applying a computer's cold-eyed logic to the situation … has done its job, which is to reveal whether a [water-supply] system is flexible enough for a change. This one is."

This year's Pulitzer for the Bee is not the first time the newspaper has turned to UC Davis expertise in its award-winning reporting. Then-Bee science writer Deborah Blum (now on the journalism faculty at the University of Wisconsin, Madison) won the Pulitzer Prize for beat reporting in 1992 for her stories on the ethical and moral questions surrounding primates in research, which included many interviews with UC Davis faculty and staff. That same year, Bee reporter Tom Knudson won the Pulitzer for public service for his stories on environmental threats and damage to the Sierra Nevada, which also relied in part on UC Davis expertise.

After Monday's announcement, Lund and Null were quick to point out that the CALVIN model is the product of several years of work by many UC Davis faculty and staff and almost 20 students from five graduate programs. Lund, a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in the College of Engineering, emphasized in particular the contributions of Richard Howitt, a professor in the Department of Resource and Agricultural Economics in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

Lund said the Bee's Pulitzer-winning series, and the public discussion it generated, demonstrate the essential role that university research plays in public policy matters. "We are relied upon to develop and explore novel solutions to major problems of California and the world," he said.

That reliance means academics are obligated to present "both the upside and the limitations of our work," he added. "The public and media are smart. If Sarah's report had not been balanced, it would have received very little attention."

In fact, it received and continues to receive a great deal of attention. Tom Philp learned of it from a story in The Fresno Bee; Fresno Bee reporter had heard about Null's study and read it on the CALVIN web site. Null and Lund have made dozens of public presentations on the Hetchy findings specifically and the potential uses of the CALVIN model generally.

In one example, Null was asked by California state Assemblymember Lois Wolk, D-Davis, to report her conclusions to a large group of legislators' staff members. Wolk was then instrumental in prompting the state's natural resources chief, secretary Mike Chrisman, to order a report on the potential impacts of draining Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. It is expected this summer.

Null is continuing her studies for a Ph.D. in geography, focusing on efficiency in environmental water use. The CALVIN research group continues to develop and apply the computer model to a wide variety of western water problems, including long-term water management in California in an era of climate change; water concerns in Baja California; and cross-boundary water issues with Mexico.

"CALVIN is a very clever, refreshing way to look at water supplies and delivery," said Philp.

"We were very lucky to have such a talented and passionate journalist notice our work," Lund concluded.

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To read The Sacramento Bee's series "Hetch Hetchy Reclaimed," see http://www.sacBee.com/content/opinion/story/10638026p-11432525c.html. Also, UC Davis' CALVIN site is located at http://cee.engr.ucdavis.edu/faculty/lund/CALVIN/; and the California Resources Agency's Hetch Hetchy site is at http://hetchhetchy.water.ca.gov.