Southwest (AZ NM OK TX)

"The White Mountain Apache reservation stretches across about 1.24 million acres in eastern Arizona, rising at its highest point to 11,000 feet above sea level. It is the only place in the world where the state fish of Arizona lives in its natural habitat ."

"Texas is a notably easy place to set up shop for industrial projects with lots of liquid waste and nowhere good to put it. The state’s waterways are open for business, an analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data shows, to send large volumes of discarded chemicals and industrial discharge downstream and out to sea."

"Biologist Bryan Bakevich unscrewed the top of a plastic bucket and removed a Rio Grande cutthroat trout that squirmed from his grasp and plopped onto the grassy bank of Middle Ponil Creek."

"Covid-19 ravaged Indigenous tribes in New Mexico. State and federal data reveal how a long legacy of uranium exposure may have made them uniquely vulnerable."

"Fifth Ward and Kashmere Gardens residents have been fighting for years to get hazardous creosote chemicals cleaned up from the ground and groundwater around their homes. But creosote might not have been the only harmful substance that workers used at the rail yard in the neighborhood, and it might not have been the most dangerous."

"PORT ARTHUR, Tex. — On any given day at the Prince Hall apartment complex, the breeze might carry soot and stink of burning tar. Black smoke might billow overhead as excess gas is burned at one of the refineries directly across the road. The fumes make Ariel Watson’s head ache until she can barely think. Jeremy Roy, 9, closes his windows against air that “stinks like farts.”"

"Streets and highways around Dallas remained waterlogged Monday afternoon after flash floods struck the Dallas-Fort Worth area overnight, leaving at least one person dead. Signs of flooding lingered even after the rain mostly cleared from the metroplex."