Is the U.S. Polluting Drinking Water?

By Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica Jan 28, 2013 Mexico City plans to draw drinking water from a mile-deep aquifer. The effort challenges a key tenet of U.S. clean water policy: Water far underground can be intentionally polluted because it will never be used. Dig deeper ( 3 Min. Read )

The Trillion-Gallon Loophole: Lax Rules for Drillers That Inject Pollutants Into the Earth

By Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica Sep 24, 2012 Injection wells have proliferated over the past 60 years, in large part because they are the cheapest, most expedient way to manage hundreds of billions of gallons of industrial waste generated in the U.S. each year. Yet the dangers of injection are well known: In accidents dating to the 1960s, toxic materials have bubbled up to the surface or escaped, contaminating aquifers that store supplies of drinking water. Dig deeper ( 18 Min. Read )

Study Raises New Concerns About Fracking

By Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica May 3, 2012 A study into the safety of gas drilling in New York state's Marcellus Shale concludes that natural faults and fractures, exacerbated by the effects of fracking, could allow chemicals to reach the surface and contaminate drinking water supplies much sooner than experts previously predicted. Dig deeper ( 4 Min. Read )