The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "erosion" ...
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Last Chance
"The series explains that there's a 10-year opportunity to restore Louisiana's eroding coastal wetlands and shoreline, including barrier islands. If major restoration projects costing billions of dollars are not begun by then, it may be too late to save much of the ecosystem. The series explains the myriad of proposals for restoring the coast, and the bureaucratic, social, economic and scientific obstacles in their way."
Tags: coastal wetlands; erosion; shoreline; ecosystem; fisheries; environmental protection
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Blighted Homeland
During the Cold War, the federal government, seeking to increase its nuclear arsenal, mined uranium on a Navajo reservation that spanned parts of Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, with 3.9 million tons of uranium ore chiseled and blasted from the mountains between 1944 to 1986. Fifty years after a medical journal noted an almost complete lack of cancer on the reservation, that mining left a mark that still persists today. The L.A. Times finds that "groundwater is contaminated, gray mine wastes cascade down hillsides and erosion exposes once-buried radiation at reclaimed mines and illegal dump sites." Some Navajos have suffered from lung and breast cancer, attributable to the harsh conditions created by the mining. Now uranium is once again rising in price, and mining companies are preparing to move in again, this time with new technology. But still with environmental consequences.
Tags: Uranium; uranium mining; Navajo reservation; cancer rates; Cold War; environmental effects of mining
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County's Aging Bridges at the Breaking Point
One third of Ventura county's bridges were built before 1965 and 28 of them have been designated as "structurally deficient." But the county is still waiting for the funds to fix or replace them. California's winter floods in 2005 washed away one bridge and left others even more weakened. Dodge examines the Federal Highway Administration's Inventory and discusses funding problems as well as the potentially fatal consequences of continuing neglect.
Tags: Federal Highway funds; state highway grants; bridge repairs; structural damage; floods; erosion; engineers; transportation; roads
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Slippery Slope of Disregard Boom: Hundreds Build in Landslide Areas on the Faith Engineering Will Save Them
Homeowners who choose to build in the Santa Cruz Mountains, an area notorious for its landslides during extremely rainy seasons, must take extra precautions, including soil tests, installing retaining walls, and creating drainage channels to control erosion. But despite thorough preparation, one cannot guarantee the safety of his or her home.
Tags: California landslides; Santa Cruz Mountains; Santa Cruz County; building on landslides
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Farmer's Penalties Rarely Stick
Farmers rarely face penalties for failing to live up to their soil conservation plans. If they don't follow the plans that they develop with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, they are supposed to lose federal farm subsidies. Loopholes in the 1996 Freedom to Farm legislation makes it easy for farmers to avoid the penalties.
Tags: Farming; pollution; conservation; agriculture; soil erosion; Freedom to Farm
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Against the Tide: Modern times and a polluted bay threaten the watermen of Smith Island.
The article paints a picture of life on Smith Island. The community makes it's living by harvesting crabs but as older residents pass away and younger ones are lured away by college the community is shrinking.
Tags: crabs; smith island; erosion; tourism; community
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Paradise at Risk
As erosion continues to eat away at Florida's beaches, tourism, a staple of the state's economy, will decline. This fact led to "Paradise at Risk," an in-depth look into the dollars behind the disappearance of the shoreline. This Gannett investigation involved 67 journalists at three Florida newspapers, three TV stations and two news bureaus.
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Unclogging Gideon's trumpet: Mississippi suits are the latest to attack state defense funding.
The National Law Journal examines the state of criminal defense spending by states, most notably Mississippi. David E. Rovella writes "defense lawyers contend that budgets for already-overtaxed indigent defense systems are flat or have been cut. And in states without a public defense system, they argue, the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark ruling in Gideon v. Wainwright, which guarantees state-funded indigent criminal defense, is ineffective." The National Law Journal writes about "three lawsuits filed in a recent weeks have challenged the way Mississippi provides criminal defense to the poor. They are the latest in a handful of suits nationwide attacking what defense lawyers say is the hidden price of war on crime: the erosion of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel."
Tags: Gideon v. Wainwright; right to counsel; Sixth Amendment; U.S. Supreme Court; Mississippi; public defense; public defender; law; legal; public defense system; lawsuits; poor; crime
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$151,000 MSD study is called unnecessary
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch found that "a private lawyer for the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District went outside agency channels to hire a local company for an erosion and asbestos study, then covered the $151,000 cost by including it among his firm's legal bills to the district. The now-defunct company had no track record in the field of study. Ratepayers ended up paying seven to 15 times what a district engineer says the study should have cost, and according to some MSD officials, the study wasn't needed to begin with.
Tags: Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District; MSD; St. Louis; Charles E. Polk; sewer district; state bidding; public funds; Nu-Star Distribution; Maline Creek watershed
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Keeping dirt in its place
Madison reports on ongoing mudding of Lake Mendota in Madison county. The story reveals that at least 44,000 tons of dirt are sloughed into the lake every year, mostly by workers on nearby residential construction sites. The displacement of soil leads to erosion, clouds the water and fills the bays with silt and clay, the magazine reports. Authorities attempt to address the issue with tougher codes and ordinances.
Tags: erosion; construction; Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources; conservation; developers; contractors; stormwater; housing market