In May, eight INN members spent three months exposing power inequity, failures of justice and a lack of water in the West. The reporting led to $3 million in federal dollars to bring water to Gallup, California, and surrounding areas, as well as international attention to surface water transfer programs.
Since then, what’s gotten better? What’s gotten worse? Learn more in part two of our Tapped Out series.
Read the stories in the collaboration below.
Nine INN newsrooms spent several months reporting on water justice issues in the rural Western U.S. The participants — California Health Report, Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism/SJV Water, Circle of Blue, Colorado Public Radio, Columbia Insight, The Counter, High Country News and New Mexico In Depth — explored issues including contaminated water, drought, overuse of groundwater and land ownership.
New Mexico’s Jackpile Mine has joined a list of America’s most heavily polluted places.
Contaminant removal is often hampered by high treatment costs and water infrastructure. And polluters rarely have to answer for their actions.
Groundwater pumping caused San Joaquin Valley’s canal system to break. Many want taxpayers to foot the repair bill.
State water and federal officials say they will include tribes in Colorado River policymaking negotiations for the first time.
As western lands are consolidated, so are the rights to use the water that flows under and over those lands.
Whites Valley is the top candidate for a dam and reservoir proposal. How that will affect residents in a water-scarce state?
The Bureau of Reclamation incentivized farmers to pump water faster than the resource could recover. Now residents face the fallout.
Small farmers in Kings County, California, struggle as agriculture titans wheel water for profit
The collaboration participants are INN members California Health Report, Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism/SJV Water, Circle of Blue, Colorado Public Radio, Columbia Insight, The Counter, High Country News and New Mexico In Depth. This project was made possible by a grant from the Water Foundation, with additional support from the Institute for Nonprofit News.
This project was managed at INN by Amplify Collaborations Editor Sharon McGowan.
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