Selenium, essential in microscopic doses, can be deadly in larger amounts. Death in the Marsh explains how federal irrigation projects have altered selenium's circulation in the environment, allowing it to accumulate in marshes, killing ecosystems and wildlife, and causing deformities in some animals.

Tom Harris has been a full-time environment writer since 1969, first with the San Jose Mercury until 1984 and since with the Sacramento Bee.  He was awarded an Energy Fellowship at Stanford University (1972-1973), has taught Environmental Journalism at San Jose University, and has lectured on media and the environment at Stanford, at the University of California, Berkeley, at the University of California, Davis, at the University of Texas, and at the American Press Institute in Reston, Virginia.

Among his professional honors are: the George Polk Award (Long Island University) in 1984 for a series on hazardous waste problems at military installations --"Uncle Sam's Hidden Poisons"-- that also was a Pulitzer Prize finalist the same year; the Garretson Award (San Francisco Press Club) for: "Selenium: Conspiracy of Silence" in 1986; the St. Francis Award (Catholic Press Association) in 1987 for a series on growth-driven environmental problems in California, "Trouble in Paradise"; the Clarion Award (Women in Communication) in 1989 for a series on the growing presence and threat of selenium in human foods, "Selenium: The Poisoning of America"; and numerous other state and regional awards.