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 "pond" ...
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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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Toxic Legacy: The Story of Boat Harbor
An inlet from the sea in Nova Scotia is the site of an environmental catastrophe wrought by a Scott Paper Company mill. To attract the mill, officials approved using Boat Harbor as a toxic waste treatment pond. The investigation details the actions governmental bodies took in conjunction with Scott Paper that produced the health hazard that Boat Harbor creates for nearby residents today.
Tags: Nova Scotia; Boat Harbor; Scott Paper; mill; toxic; waste; water; residents; lagoon; environment; health; hazard; public;
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Big Fish in a Big Pond
"An investigative profile of Frank Dulcich's Pacific Seafood Group, which reavealed a crippling monopoly that has overtaken the West Coast seafood business, affecting fishermen, smaller seafood buyers, the prices consumers pay for wild seafood and the availability of the product"
Tags: seafood business
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What's in your backyard?
The news team learned that several people complained the EPA never told them about toxic chemical waste contamination in their residential area. The waste was dumped near their homes or contaminated their water. Some residents eventually found out as they started to fall sick, but the EPA had known about the exposure for decades. The news team obtained the EPA database, mapped out where contaminants were concentrated and spotted the affected people. The source of contamination is traced to two steel companies. As a result, legislation is on the way, and authorities are testing soil and water.
Tags: backyard; toxic waste; chemical waste; EPA; Environmental Protection Agency; contaminants; dumping; toxic chemicals; arsenic; Health Department; contamination; pollution; drinking water; municipal water; skin rash; stomach problems; illness; potential health threat; secret; playground; pneumonia; tumor; lymphoma; pond; well water; benzene; cancer; toxin; steel warehouse; Unit 5; sludge
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Damage Control; Out of Control
This two-part series on flooding in Houston looks at the relationship between development, city government and the city's flooding problem. City government continues to use outdated flood plans that allow developers to build where they shouldn't, digging inadequate detention ponds and failing to tell homeowners in flood plains that they might want to buy flood insurance.
Tags: floods; FEMA; Federal Emergency Management Agency; developers; FOIA; Harris County Flood Control District; Tropical Storm Frances; floodplain
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Welcome To Meth Country
Sierra reports on the environmental dangers of meth labs. "For every pond of meth produced, between five and six pounds of highly toxic waste is generated." Chemicals and fumes from meth labs can cause cancer, respiratory problems and brain damage. Meth labs present toxic dangers to the officers who have to deal with them and to the environment as a whole.
Tags: meth; toxic waste; drug labs; environment; hazardous materials
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Serving Up Civil Rights
Somewhere within the powers granted by the "commerce clause" of the constitution lies the right to keep restaurants from discriminating against customers and to regulate ponds on private property used by migratory birds. Ghannam reports on the changes to civil rights and other rights that might be effected if the commerce clause is weakened by the Supreme Court.
Tags: Kazenbach v. McClung; Civil Rights Act; aggregation doctrine; Heart of Atlanta Hotel v. US; US v. Lopez; US v. Morrison; Soild Waste Agency v. US Army Corps of Engineers; Gibbs v. Babbitt; commerce clause
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Rocky Flats: From Cold War to Hot Property
Westword examines what has happened to Rocky Flats after the Atomic Energy Commission built a nuclear-weapons plant near the Denver area in the 1950s. The disposal of more than 1,500 kinds of chemicals and radioactive plutonium. Dow Chemical undertook only the slightest precautions in getting rid of the waste. It attempted solar evaporation ponds and mixing the toxic, often radioactive sludge with cement that never hardened. Over the years, materials left unprotected outside in second-hand barrels and other careless containers seeped into the prairies and groundwater. In 1974, Rockwell International took over and continued the pollution. In 1989, the plant was raided by the FBI and Colorado's first ever grand jury convened. Indictments and a $18.5 million fine were levied at Rockwell, the contractor and DOE employees. Today, an ambitious goal of cleaning up the land by 2006 is set but few have faith that the environmental damage sustained at Rocky Flats can be undone.
Tags: Bombs; contamination; uranium; plutonium; beryllium; Atomic Energy Commission; Dept. of Energy; Rockwell; Dow Chemical; Nuclear; groundwater; pollution
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Oak Ridge contamination even worse than feared
The story reveals that K-25, one of three major installations on the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge reservation. Uranium was processed into nuclear weapons fuel at K-25 for more than four decades. Today, more than 50 workers have health problems they believe are related to the K-25 complex. It is a kaleidoscope of contamination, where radioactivity and poisonous substances taint buildings, and ponds and burial grounds where wastes were dumped. Underground water carries some contaminants off site, as does Poplar Creek, which weaves through k-25 and empties into the Clinch River.
Tags: None
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No title (id: 13338)
In August of 1995, large cracks split open the earthen wall of the tailings pond in South America's largest open pit gold mine allowing 838 million gallons of cyanide-laced sludge to gush into the Omai River. This CovertAction Quarterly article investigates causes for the disaster and international community's attempt to downplay the crisis in order to save foreign corporate interests.
Tags: Baksh Poison in the Lifeline Guyana Environment Industry 8 pgs.