Seattle-based InvestigateWest published a feature package last summer documenting illegal parkland conversions in Michigan, New York City, and Oklahoma. They could not cover all the other states — that was left for you to do, with the assistance of their database of some 40,000 federal grants under the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
News stories about the April 17, 2013, explosion of a fertilizer storage plant in the town of West, Texas that killed 15 people have so far focused on the plant operator's risk-disclosure failure, instead of the likely fact that government agencies knew the nature and magnitude of the hazard — or should have known. The bigger story is the regulatory failure — and industry's decades-long campaign to keep the public ignorant of the threats they face. Photo: AP/LM Otero/Available through Creative Commons.
"When Texas promised to protect a threatened lizard in the oil-rich Permian Basin, state officials entrusted the day-to-day oversight to a nonprofit that sounds like an environmental group: the Texas Habitat Conservation Foundation."
"Supreme Court justices on Tuesday wrestled with the sensitive issue of whether a thirsty Texas water district has the right to access water across the Oklahoma state line."
"Friendliness toward the drilling industry is typical for Texas, where many lawmakers receive campaign contributions from oil and gas groups or have investments in drilling companies. The three elected members of the Railroad Commission of Texas, which oversees the oil and gas industry, have received significant contributions from the very industry they regulate."
"A city administrator looks out at the Gulf of Mexico from this Southeast Texas town, wondering what vicious hurricanes it may spawn. In the Panhandle, a farmer tries new techniques to keep soil from turning to dust. In West Texas, ranchers watch prairie grass die. Others grow algae as water becomes too salty for other crops. And statewide, reservoirs dry up. Want to see what happens when the impacts of climate change are felt? Well, just look at Texas, some scientists say."
"GONZALES, Tex. -- In a dusty lot off the main highway in this South Texas town, Vern Sartin pointed to a collection of hose hookups and large storage tanks used for collecting wastewater from hydraulic fracturing jobs."
"HOUSTON -- Oklahoma's largest-recorded earthquake was triggered by injection wells used by the oil and gas industry, according to a report released this week."
"CARLSBAD, N.M. -- Just after the local water board announced this month that its farmers would get only one-tenth of their normal water allotment this year, Ronnie Walterscheid, 53, stood up and called on his elected representatives to declare a water war on their upstream neighbors."
Jerry Redfern has worked as a professional photojournalist for 20 years. He began his career as a staff photographer at newspapers in Montana and Wyoming, at a time when papers still had darkrooms and photographers still processed their own film. In 2012, Jerry became the first winner in the new SEJ Awards category, Outstanding Photography. Image: A mother paddles her children down the Sepon River in a canoe made from fuel tanks dropped by US bombers during the Vietnam War. © Jerry Redfern.
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