Energy companies and big industry are drawing vast amounts of water from northwest Louisiana. And the withdrawals are allowing salt water to move in, threatening the main source of drinking water for a growing population of more than half a million.
While climate change has brought an abundance of water to Louisiana from above, it also threatens valuable water below — the groundwater in the state’s aquifers that the majority of the population relies on for drinking water.
The Southern Hills aquifer’s water is clean and pure. Baton Rouge residents brag about its taste. And industries prefer it because it’s cheaper to access than river water, which needs expensive treatment. But the aquifer is being depleted faster than it is being replenished.
A centuries-old law gives Louisiana landowners “ultimate dominion” over the groundwater beneath their property. That means farmers, manufacturers and homeowners can take as much as they want, when they want it — no fees required.
Groundwater levels in and around Louisiana are falling faster than almost anywhere else in the country, according to USGS data and an investigation by IRW and WWNO/WRKF.
East Texas bank president stole $11 million with fake loans — one of the biggest frauds in Texas history. Now she and the bank’s former vice-president are going to prison.
Over the course of 2020, the Investigative Reporting Workshop produced 20 investigations into subject areas we’ve focused on since we began publishing 11 years ago: Banking, immigration, health and the environment.
The stories IRW published in 2020 on water problems in Florida and California illuminate some of the many water issues prevalent in the country today.
Records and interviews show that NHTSA has failed over the past four years to complete safety standards that could increase the chance of people surviving, or avoiding, a crash.
In a segregated community outside of an Alabama oil refinery, chronic illness tells a story of racial inequality, poverty and disease as U.S. deaths from COVID-19 surpass 300,000.
Two years after going live, TAP hits a major milestone.
Investigating Power is a history of breakthrough investigations that revealed news and changed the national narrative on many major topics since the 1950s, from war to health to civil rights.
An interactive timeline following President Biden’s actions on immigration.
In April 2016, at the height of the deadliest drug epidemic in U.S. history, Congress effectively stripped the Drug Enforcement Administration of its most potent weapon against large drug companies suspected of spilling prescription narcotics onto the nation’s streets.
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