Five decades ago, the US Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs held a remarkable hearing. It was notable because … More
Tag: Pollution
The Big Breakdown of coal, illustrated by one chart
After World War II, the federal government, utilities, and developers embarked on a project to build dams, mines, power plants, … More
Industry’s strange and terrible beauty
A quick look at the Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxic Release Inventory map for the nation reveals a startling fact: The … More
Gold King water treatment shutdown: Bad, but not catastrophic
Alarm bells went off throughout the Animas and San Juan River drainages this weekend when big storms and the historically … More
“This can’t be the United States”: An excerpt from River of Lost Souls
To drive west out of Farmington is to travel through the borderland, where the northeastern edge of the Navajo Nation … More
New Mexico oil bounty comes with costs
In 2017, New Mexico moved into third place in the nation for oil production, pumping some 16 million barrels from … More
A 26,000-ton pile of radioactive waste lies under the waters and silt of Lake Powell
Beneath the murky green waters on the north end of Lake Powell, entombed within the tons of silt that have … More
Methane Madness: Dataviz of natural gas pipeline incidents
I promised that I was working on a data visualization of natural gas pipeline breaches, and after crunching a bunch … More
Oil and hazmat spills are daily occurrence
After the latest big oil spill — 200,000 + gallons on the Keystone line in South Dakota — I decided … More