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 "high hazard" ...
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Disaster Ahead? Deregulated Dams
A Tennessee law allows old watershed dams to be downgraded to farm ponds from high-hazard dams, exempting them from state safety inspections. The reporter discovered 13 of these dams were downgraded in 2008. The lack of oversight poses serious consequences because fatalities are likely to occur should one of the dams fail.
Tags: dams; farm pond; regulation; inspection; safety; public safety
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Dangerous Dams
There are several "high hazard" dams in Maryland which the state Department of the Environment considers unsafe and a threat to public safety. Some of these dams are in imminent danger of failing. A "high hazard" dam indicates that a collapse would cause loss of life and damage to residential, industrial or agricultural areas, public utilities and infrastructure. The story detailed lax enforcement of rules and regulations when a dam owner is told by state inspectors to fix problems.
Tags: Dams; safety; breach; unsafe; high hazard
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Hidden Hazards: A Legacy of Neglect
Robert McCabe unmasked a failed environmental protection system on the local, state and federal level in Chesapeake, Virginia, that permitted developers to build housing on lands with serious pollution problems. In his first report, McCabe explained how in one subdivision, the lead contamination is so high that home buyers in part of the neighborhood will be forbidden to grow vegetables or to water their lawns with groundwater. Furthermore, their homes sit over an old dump site with high levels of underground combustible gas.
Tags: pollution; Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ); River's Edge at Quailshire; environmental hazards; lead contamination
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Radioactive Water Flowed to Thousands of Homes
This series detailed how high levels of radium 226/228, known human carcinogens linked to bone and nasal cancers, contaminated public drinking water wells that provided water to thousands of people in Northwest Florida between 1996-2000. The public utility responsible for water safety resisted state efforts to clean the radioactive material and inform the public, because it cost too much money. The Utilities Authority conducted tapwater samples that measured high concentrations of radium coming out of fountains at an elementary school, regional airport, government offices, and the tourist welcome center, but the results of these samples were never made public.
Tags: radium; human carcinogens; bone cancer; nasal cancer; contaminated drinking water wells; radioactive material; Escambia County Utilities Authority; drinking water; Agrico Chemical Co. Superfund hazardous waste; U.S. Florida Department of Environmental protection; radium-tainted water; Escambia County Health Department; Pensacola Regional Airport; Santa Rosa Island Authority; Cordova Park Elementary School; Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water; American Agricultural Chemical Co.; U.S. Geological Survey; maximum contamination level; MCL; Northwest Florida Management District; water cleanup; Environmental Protection Agency; "limited action" cleanup DuPont; ConocoPhillips; Conoco Inc.; The Williams Co.; Freeport-McMoRan Inc.
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Profiting from Public Service
These stories published over a period of eight days investigate how almost 120 lawmakers in New Jersey carved out high paying contracts for themselves. Lawmakers could do so legally due to a built-in protection system that did not allow any reform. This report reveals that, essentially, the officials who were part of the Legislature could further their personal businesses with the taxpayer's money.
Tags: State legislature; lawmakers in New Jersey; FOIA; New Jersey Legislature; lawmakers; Financial Fraud
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Damaged Lives: Lead's Toxic Toll; Children poisoned as lead cleanups fail; Data pinpoint poisoned blocks
A Detroit Free Press series on children and lead poisoning. It looks at how lead cleanups are failing and the effects of lead poisoning on children. "A Free Press investigation has found that the toll is needlessly high--the result of a national lead strategy that is disjointed, bureaucratically tangled and not nearly expansive enough to solve a problem that has led to the poisoning of 2. 5 million Americans in the last decade." It also reports that "currently, an estimated 300,000 U.S. children--including 22,000 in Michigan--face lives of reduced intelligence and diminished futures because of lead." A follow up of the original series found that government funding is not targeting areas where kids most in need live.
Tags: lead poisoning; children; public health; lead; poor children; lead hazards; national lead strategy; lead cleanup; lead paint
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Caution, Nuclear Waste Ahead
This article looks at legislation in Congress that would have nuclear power plants across the country send their waste to sites in Nevada and the danger of transporting the highly hazardous waste on public roads and train tracks. The two main dangers are radiation exposure to nearby drivers and the risk of an accident. A huge hike in shipments could make the possibility of a disaster more likely.
Tags: nuclear waste; legislation; nuclear industry; Nevada Test Site; radioactive material; nuclear fuel; Nuclear Regulatory Commission
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A medical mystery in Morgan City
WWL-TV's Eyewitness News reports on "an unusually high number of people suffering from auto-immune diseases in the Morgan City vicinity." The investigation reveals that the ailments common in the area - scleroderma, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and other tissue-transforming illnesses - might have been caused by environmental problems as well as genetic factors. Morgan City is an oil town with several industrial plants and five superfund waste sites, the program reports. Health officials have discovered a similar concentration of auto-immune diseases in Southern Boston as well. Experts are wary of linking the disease clusters to environmental factors only.
Tags: TAPE; TRANSCRIPT; superfund; hazardous waste; toxins; Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); environment; health; pollution; medicine
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Rescuing the River
A Journal News investigative series reports on the Environmental Protection Agency's $460-million plan "to perform the largest environmental dredging project in the nation's history on a 40-mile section of the Upper Hudson River." The river was contaminated with PCBs, deadly chemicals that have been dumped in the water by General Electric for decades. The toxins destroyed fishing and tainted a Mohawk reservation. The stories question the cost and effectiveness of the dredging plan, which "might not remove PCBs from the river but it would destroy marshes...." The investigation documents the GE high-dollar lobbying and advertising efforts in favor of the argument that "the river will clean itself."
Tags: environment; FOI requests; rivers; Congress; legislature; Sen. Hillary Clinton; hazardous waste; Hudson River Superfund; National Academy of Sciences; lobbyists; public health; contamination; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
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Hidden Hazard
From IRE Contest entry form: "This series, for the first time, brought to light the staggering volume of toxic chemicals released each year into the air, water, land and underground, and the possible contribution of this pollution to the high rates of cancer and other health problems. We found that industries in Escambia County, which includes Pensacola, emitted the highest total volume of toxic pollution in Florida in 1998, the latest year for which federal statistics were available. The county ranked No. 22 nationwide, with industries here emitting more toxic pollution than the entire state of New Jersey. One month after the series was published, federal statistics for 1999 were released, ranking the county No. 18 nationwide."
Tags: toxic waste; Florida; environment; hazardous waste; public health; safety