“Pumped Dry: The Global Crisis of Vanishing Groundwater”

• Recap and Video of “When the Well Runs Dry” Symposium at Stanford
• Announcement: Desert Sun/USA Today Exploration of Groundwater Overuse Wins 2016 Knight-Risser Prize

“Pumped Dry: The Global Crisis of Vanishing Groundwater,” a joint project of The Desert Sun and USA Today, has won the 2016 Knight-Risser Prize for Western Environmental Journalism. The prize goes to Desert Sun reporter Ian James, USA Today’s Steve Elfers, a videojournalist, and Steve Reilly, a reporter and data specialist.

• Articles in the Series
• Main Page
• Pumped beyond limits, many U.S. aquifers in decline
• California in overdraft
• How unchecked pumping is sucking aquifers dry in India
• The costs of Peru’s farming boom
• Dry springs and dead orchards (Morocco)

Supported by a team of journalists and a travel grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, James and Elfers traveled to farms in California, Kansas, India, Peru, and Morocco. In stories, photographs and information graphics, they identified a water crisis that exists not just in the West but across the country and the globe. Through interviews with scientists, farmers, government officials and residents, they illustrated how the unchecked use of underground water threatens not just current but future water supplies. The series also spawned a documentary that was shown at film festivals in Sonoma and Palm Springs, Calif., as well as Toronto and Washington D.C.

Watch the Video of Ian James’ Remarks to the Knight-Risser Prize Symposium (Story continues below)

Special Recognition

“Killing the Colorado”

Abrahm Lustgarten
ProPublica, in partnership with Matter

Special Recognition was given to “Killing the Colorado,” a five-part series by ProPublica reporter Abrahm Lustgarten, exposing the western water crisis as the result of generations of legislative and legal decisions influenced by greed, political cowardice and willful ignorance of basic science. Produced in partnership with the online science and environment publication Matter.

• Articles in the Series
• Main Page
• Holy Crop: How federal dollars are financing the water crisis in the West
• The ‘Water Witch:’ Pat Mulroy preached conservation while backing growth in Las Vegas
• Las Vegas City Limits: A Boom Town’s Growing Water Woes
• Use It or Lose It: Across the west, exercising one’s right to waste water
• End of the Miracle Machines: Inside the power plant fueling America’s drought