Wyatt Myskow

Dozens of proposed projects would pump water uphill to reservoirs that release it to generate electricity when wind and solar can’t. But their reliance on groundwater in the drought-stricken Southwest is leading to pushback.

As Nevada and other Western states look to spread out across more federal land, environmentalists and advocates of “smart growth” worry about sustainability, sprawl, water and climate change.

Utility-scale solar farms spreading rapidly across the desert Southwest are stressing the region’s already overtaxed groundwater and communities are beginning to push back.

As states negotiate future water cuts, some officials are looking to build new dams and reservoirs in the Upper Basin of the overallocated Colorado River to use more water.

From Buckeye to Mesa, Phoenix-area communities plan to spend millions to find new water supplies to help the region continue to grow.

Angela Bilia made $18,000 last year as an adjunct at the University of Akron. She once made more — triple, in fact — doing nearly the exact same job. In the early months of the pandemic, the Ohio university laid off close to 100 faculty members, including Bilia. But the service Bilia had provided to the university — teaching “the bread and butter courses” of the English department for over 15 years — was still needed. So the university hired her back as an adjunct.

A Twitter thread in response to the incoming Cronkite school dean alledged Sonya Forte Duhé had a history of making racist and homophobic remarks to her former and current students. Me and Piper Hansen would begin reaching out to her former students, which would quickly result in us talking to over 20 of her former students about the treatment they received from Duhé. For this article, I would interview 14 of Duhé's former students and obtain a bias complaint filed against Duhé in 2019. Our investigation would lead to ASU rescinding Duhé's job offer.

Late in the fall 2020 semester, a former ASU student posted a series of videos telling her story as a victim of sexual assault and how ASU investigated her case. Piper Hansen, Andrew Onodera and I would spend a month reporting how those processes work, how and why they fail victims and the improvements advocates are pushing ASU to implement. For this article, I handled the reporting on how the University itself conducted its investigations and received the records on their results. Each reporter would write their portion of the reporting on the first draft. Piper and I would then work together on the final rewrite. The article was selected as the winner of the Arizona Press Club Student Investigative Reporting award. It was also a finalist for both IRE's 2021 Student - Small category and SPJ's 2021 Region 11 Mark of Excellence Award for Online In-Depth Reporting.