Southwest (AZ NM OK TX)

"Residents from a modest southeast Houston neighborhood pointed Sunday toward a lagoon of algae-covered water with a pungent chemical smell that filled the parking lot of an abandoned cleaning facility for chemical trucks. Only some weeds and a cyclone fence separate the facility from homes and a charter school."

After uranium mining poisoned their wells, thousands of Navajos must drive long miles to get water that is safe to drink.

"MENTONE, Tex. — Loving County is big, dry and stretches for miles, and is the perfect place, local officials say, to store high-level radioactive waste."

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will set up its microphones for an all day hearing Tuesday in Galena Park, a community on Houston’s east side in the heart of the enormous Houston Ship Channel refinery complex. It’s the second of two such hearings with the first held last month in a similar community in Los Angeles."

"When the going got tough due one of with worst droughts in a century, the parched Texas city of Wichita Falls got going with its program to recycle sewage water for drinking."

"When a Texas jury handed down a $3 million verdict this year for a family affected by natural gas drilling, Dan Raichel saw a pattern coming into focus."

"LEES FERRY, Ariz. — In this corner of America known for its vast landscapes, rugged mountains and deep river canyons, signs of the havoc created by the minuscule tamarisk beetle are everywhere."

"As Republicans promote the state’s economic 'miracle,' many climate scientists from Texas say prosperity has come at a steep price. With its dependence on an energy industry that relies on extracting fossil fuels, scientists say Texas has become a large contributor to greenhouse gas emissions as well as more vulnerable to its consequences. Texas emits more greenhouse gases than any other state, according to federal data."

"DALLAS -- Texas has stopped inspecting 44% of the dams in the state, following passage last year of a state law that exempted most privately owned dams from safety requirements. Now, as a drought dries up large portions of the Southwest, some dam-safety experts and officials are questioning the law, saying the dry spell is leaving webs of cracks along the surface of earthen dams that may make them weaker—and prone to triggering floods—when rains eventually fill them up again."