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 "wetlands" ...
-
Renegade Riders
Despite new state laws, extra enforcement and self-policing, off-road vehicles are tearing up public lands across the state. As the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources designated nearly 8,000 miles of motorized trails, top officials repeatedly ignored staff experts' recommendations on how to keep riders away from sensitive areas such as wetlands. A companion video reports on startribune.com used a hidden camera to capture illegal off-trail damage as it happened.
Tags: state parks; environmental destruction; Minnesota Department of Natural Resources; public safety; conservation; park trails
-
Losing Louisiana
The Times-Picayune found that over the next 100 years the natural sinking of soft marsh soils could result in making New Orleans an island. Hundreds of miles of Louisiana coastline would be wiped out and sea-level will rise over time as the soil falls.
Tags: flooding; marshes; delta; Mississippi River; Hurricane Katrina; wetland; sediment;
-
Heart Like Water: Surviving Katrina and Life in its Disaster Zone
"Hundreds of oral histories, interviews, and anecdotes lace through the author's own narrative of the storm and its ten week aftermath." Clark lived in New Orleans when Katrina hit and did not evacuate, this is his memoir.
Tags: Hurricane Katrina; natural disasters; memoir; New Orleans; wetland
-
Muddy 98
"Reporter Ben Raines discovered that lax oversight and poor engineering of a major highway project had allowed thousands of tons of mud to wash into Mobile's drinking water supply and the numerous creeks and wetlands that feed it."
Tags: environment; water supply; unsafe construction; public health; highway development; environmental agency
-
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
-
When Dry is Wet
By convincing lawmakers that it is the answer to saving the nation's weltands, the mitigation bankers of Florida have taken tens of millions of taxpayers dollars. The wetland the Florida banks were claiming to save were actually dry, and they sold credits to developers who were wiping out wetlands up to 80 miles away.
Tags: wetlands; nature; fraud; bank; Lake Louisa Wetland Mitigation Bank; Central Florida
-
Hillsborough County School District Land Investigation
The ninth largest U.S. school district, Hillsborough County (FL), in 2006 was "growing fast enough to fill five new schools" per year. To meet the demand, Hillsborough county used the services of 4 private real estate brokers, without using bids, in violation of its own regulations. Three of the four brokers have records of criminal, legal and financial problems. Some of those brokers simultaneously represented the sellers, or flipped the land themselves, resulting in land purchases often made substantially above appraisal values. Reporters from the St. Petersburg Times documented swampland purchases, and school sites surrounded by the homes of sexual predators.
Tags: land; school board; school district superintendent; real estate brokers; realtors; swampland; bidding practices; state FOI; land flipping; rezoning applications; condemnation; assessments; appraisals; financial investigations; land records; wetland maps; FBI investigation; Florida Department of Law Enforcement; Excel; Matthew B. Cox; Chester B. Luney; Fred Edmister; National Realty Associates; school planning; Wilson-Miller; Florida Real Estate Commission; 2606 East Caracus Land Trust; Laurence E. Fuentes; Fuentes and Kreischer Title Co.; Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation
-
Vanishing Wetlands
The authors used satellite imagery to determine how many acres of Florida's wetlands had disappeared since 1990, when President George H.W. Bush promised to ensure no net loss of wetlands. The Army Corps of Engineers is responsible for maintaining the wetlands, but the organization's record-keeping is so incomplete that they have no accurate record of how many acres of wetlands were saved and how many were destroyed. The reporters found that government records regarding the creation of new wetlands were full of "creative accounting and questionable science."
Tags: environment; wetlands; preservation; ecosystem; wildlife; Army Corps of Engineers; FOIA; data analysis; satellite imagery; mapping
-
The Judge's Subdivision
Hector San Miguel, the city editor at American Press, received a tip that State District Judge Wilford Carter was building residential subdivisions without required permits, even though the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the State Licensing Board of Contractors warned him not to do so. Carter continued building subdivisions on top of a restricted wetlands area without getting the required permits first and hid his wrongdoing's from the City Council and local zoning board. When owners of some of the lots came forward to be reimbursed, Carter refused to give them their money.
Tags: real estate; public officials; judge corruption; State Licensing Board of Contractors; U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
-
Newsday Investigation Series: Dumping Newsday Every Day; Tip of the Iceberg; For a Few Dollars More; Cleanup or Shakedown?; Unbelievable!; Newsday: Game Over
This investigation of Newsday, Long Island's only daily newspaper, was prompted by a lawsuit filed against the paper by its advertisers. The suit alleged that Newsday was guilty of mass circulation fraud and shortchanging advertisers. The Long Island Press launched its own investigation and found problems that went beyond the lawsuit's allegations, including mass dumping of undelivered papers into local wetland preserves and recycling centers. Reporters also learned of other instances in which Newsday inflated actual circulation and subscriber/distribution fraud.
Tags: mass circulation fraud; lawsuit; advertising