TAPPED OUT is a collaboration that includes the Institute for Nonprofit News, California Health Report, Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism, Circle of Blue, Columbia Insight, Ensia, High Country News, New Mexico In Depth and SJV Water. It was made possible by a grant from The Water Desk, with support from Ensia and INN’s Amplify News Project.


California Tribes Call Out Degradation of Clear Lake

A monitoring program tracks toxic cyanobacteria and influences change

By Brett Walton, Circle of Blue – May 3, 2021


Toxic Cyanobacteria Choke Water Systems Around California’s Clear Lake

Toxic blooms are a public health risk and increase water treatment costs.

By Brett Walton, Circle of Blue – May 4, 2021


‘I’m scared of getting sick from the water’

Some rural California communities have waited nearly a decade for state regulators to repair their tainted drinking-water systems.

By Claudia Boyd-Barrett, California Health Report – May 5, 2021



Cheese in the desert: Why mega-dairies are piping water onto Oregon’s shrub-steppe

An environmental coalition is lobbying for a moratorium on mega-dairies, which have proliferated in a water-challenged area of northeastern Oregon

By Dawn Stover, Columbia Insight – May 6, 2021


Navajo-Gallup water delay spurs problem solving in arid Southwest

A New Mexico town and Navajo communities look for water sources as regional water project hits a delay.

By Elizabeth Miller, New Mexico In Depth – May 7, 2021


“A generational historic struggle to regain our water”

The Gila River Indian Community is ensuring that its members have long-term access to their own resources while helping solve broader water supply problems in the region.

By Sharon Udasin, Ensia – May 13, 2021


The Central California Town That Keeps Sinking

The very ground upon which Corcoran, Calif., was built has been slowly but steadily collapsing, a situation caused primarily not by nature but agriculture.

By Lois Henry, Center for Collaborative Journalism – May 25, 2021


Photographs by Ryan Christopher Jones