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Recent Articles from Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica
Less Than Zero: Despite decades of accepted science, California and Arizona are still miscounting their water supplies
Drawing groundwater from near a stream can suck that stream dry. In turn, using all the water in streams and rivers lessens their ability to replenish the aquifers beneath them. Yet California and Arizona -- the two states water experts say are facing the most severe water crises -- continue to count and regulate groundwater and surface water as if they were entirely separate.
End of the miracle machines: Inside the power plant fueling America’s drought
In a series of reports, ProPublica has examined how the West’s water crisis is as much a product of human error and hubris as it is of nature. The Navajo Generating Station is a monument to man’s outsized confidence that it would always be possible to engineer new solutions to an arid region’s environmental limits.
