Investigations into Modern Vascular and Arizona water woes win business journalism awards

Michael Braga, Arizona Republic
·6 min read

Andrew Ford’s narrative investigation about Modern Vascular, a rapidly growing medical practice that focused on removing blockages in the lower leg, won a first-place prize for health and science reporting from the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing on Thursday.

A collection of stories about Arizona’s water woes by current and former Arizona Republic reporters Rob O’Dell, Ian James, Ryan Randazzo, and Mark Henle won an honorable mention in the energy and natural resources category.

And Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication picked up two student journalism awards.

Neetish Basnet of Cronkite News, the news division of Arizona PBS at ASU, won the Student Journalism award for Stories for Student Media Outlets for “Covering the Business Beat from Washington.” ASU’s Howard Center for Investigative Journalism won the student journalism award in Projects and Collaborations with their multimedia investigative series “Gaslit.”

“The Best in Business Awards competition is going from strength to strength, attracting a bigger and more diverse set of entries again this year,” said Joanna Ossinger, co-chair of the Best in Business Awards and markets editor at Bloomberg News. “It’s wonderful to see so much informative and impactful work from the business journalism community. SABEW is pleased to honor some of the very best of those efforts.”

Ford’s stories chronicled the history of Modern Vascular’s top-billing doctor, Scott Brannan, from a trailer home to medical school, from repeated arrests to national prominence.

Victoria Garcia lost two legs after Modern Vascular procedures.
Victoria Garcia lost two legs after Modern Vascular procedures.

Some Modern Vascular patients lost their limbs or their lives after allegedly unnecessary procedures, and some sued the company. The Department of Justice also filed a legal complaint claiming Modern Vascular defrauded Medicare out of $50 million and allegedly engaged in an illegal kickback scheme. The company denied the DOJ's claims in court.

The Department of Justice said in legal documents that Modern Vascular placed “enormous pressure” on staff to perform expensive invasive procedures. "As Modern Vascular Corporate’s Chief Medical Officer Steve Berkowitz told a reporter for The Arizona Republic, 'If you run a pizza joint and you’re not selling enough pizzas, you’re not going to stay in business.'”

Officials at Modern Vascular denied wrongdoing.

“We do a lot of amazing work,” Yuri Gampel, Modern Vascular’s former chief executive, told Ford last year. “We save limbs every single day in all of our clinics.”

Since The Republic’s stories were published and the Department of Justice filed its complaint, Modern Vascular has shuttered about half its clinics. Where it once advertised 17 clinics on its website, there are now only eight.

Medicare payments made up a large portion of the company’s revenue, and an email circulated by the company’s new chief executive, Patrick F. Santore Jr., last month said that Medicare was “presently suspending all payments pending the outcome of the DOJ investigation.”

The Modern Vascular story came to Andrew Ford as a tip from a reader. If you know about something else he should investigate, please email Andrew at aford@arizonarepublic.com. Send documents to Andrew Ford, The Arizona Republic, 200 E. Van Buren St., Phoenix, AZ 85004.

Energy and Natural Resources Reporting

Ground water is pumped into a canal to irrigate a field, February 25, 2022, at Fondomonte's Butler Valley Ranch near Bouse.
Ground water is pumped into a canal to irrigate a field, February 25, 2022, at Fondomonte's Butler Valley Ranch near Bouse.

Meanwhile, two stories by a team of former and current Arizona Republic reporters, which included O’Dell, James, Randazzo and Henle, were recognized in a different category.

The first article, published in June, featured Fondomonte, the Saudi Arabian company that’s been sucking groundwater from under the desert to grow alfalfa and then shipping it halfway around the world to feed its dairy cows in the Middle East. The investigation revealed that the company has been paying the state just $25 per acre annually to lease public land, far less than the land is worth.

“Saudi Arabia has stated their intention to rob Arizonans at the gas pump, but they are also already stealing our water,” said U.S. Rep Ruben Gallego in October, expressing the outrage of many Arizonans. “We need to act to stop our state from being sucked dry by a nonsensical agreement.”

By contrast, the second article, published in December, focused on residents of rural towns — many living below the poverty line — who are facing a myriad of problems because their water infrastructure is in desperate need of repair.

These residents' homes are either hooked to pipes that are 40 to 50 years old and need to be replaced, or their water contains dangerous levels of arsenic and other chemicals, or the water table in their area has dropped so low that they need to dig new wells. Whatever the case, they face millions of dollars in upgrades, which will translate into steep monthly increases in their water bills — increases that many won’t be able to afford.

Kim Canady walks back to his RV after filling his water bottles, March 1, 2022, at the Bouse RV Park, 44255 Winters Street, Bouse, Arizona.
Kim Canady walks back to his RV after filling his water bottles, March 1, 2022, at the Bouse RV Park, 44255 Winters Street, Bouse, Arizona.

“There’s only so much you can burden people with,” said Tom Hashem, a resident of Pine, Arizona. “You can’t take 40 to 50 years of neglect and expect to repair it all at once.”

After the story about Fondomonte went live, it immediately re-energized efforts on the part of lawmakers to protect Arizona’s groundwater. By revealing the cheap land deal and the unchecked pumping of water, the reporting also brought scrutiny of Arizona’s system of leasing farmland to the private company at very low prices, depriving schools of much-needed revenues.

Kris Mayes, Arizona’s new attorney general, called for Arizona’s Land Department to cancel the leases to the Saudi company growing alfalfa near Vicksburg and for the Saudis to pay the state back as much as $38 million for water they’ve pumped over the past five years.

Mayes pointed out that money from land leases is supposed to support K-12 education and that leases made at below-market rates were depriving schools of much-needed funding. "We need to be maximizing the amount of money that our schools receive from state trust land and the water beneath it, "she said.

Tom Hashem in front of the cabin that's been in his family since they moved to Pine from Buffalo in 1958. He thinks it would be unfair to make residents pick up the full cost of water utility upgrades.“There’s only so much you can burden people with,” he said. “You can’t take 40 to 50 years of neglect and expect to repair it all at once.”
Tom Hashem in front of the cabin that's been in his family since they moved to Pine from Buffalo in 1958. He thinks it would be unfair to make residents pick up the full cost of water utility upgrades.“There’s only so much you can burden people with,” he said. “You can’t take 40 to 50 years of neglect and expect to repair it all at once.”

U.S. Rep. Tom O’Halleran (D-Ariz.) also ripped the leases and said they needed to end, while Gallego (D-Ariz.) introduced legislation calling for a tax on the sale and export of water-intensive crops.

On Dec. 26, the New York Times added its powerful voice to the chorus, tipping its hat to The Republic’s coverage, while calling for Arizona to reform its groundwater laws.

“Standing up to special interests tied to Arizona’s free-for-all water system won’t be as easy as the anti-Saudi saber rattling seen across the state, but it is the step that is needed to prevent Arizona’s water crisis from becoming a water catastrophe,” author Natalie Koch wrote in a guest essay in the Times.

At around the same time, Arizona’s Department of Water Resources announced that the state will block expansion of large-scale irrigated farming in Mohave County, determining that pumping in the region had become unsustainable.

So far, there have not been many commitments to fix rural utilities. But the Corporation Commission, which regulates these entities, is expected to be more proactive in the year ahead.

“Groundwater issues continue to be a problem,” said Holly Irwin, a La Paz County supervisor who has long fought for rural counties to have more control over water usage. “We can’t keep kicking the can down the road … No one wants to be dealing with this until their faucets don’t turn on.”

The Best in Business Awards said it attracted 1,182 entries from 193 news organizations, ranging from international, national and regional news outlets to specialized business publications.

The Arizona Republic was recognized in the midsized category — the same category as the Boston Globe, the Miami Herald and Forbes Magazine.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona Republic stories on Modern Vascular, water use win awards