Mark Olalde for ProPublica

I report on issues related to public lands, water, mining, oil and gas, and agriculture across the Four Corners region and beyond. I am especially interested in how the energy transition is transforming the West.

Before joining ProPublica, I wrote for The Desert Sun, the Center for Public Integrity and The Arizona Republic. My investigations have taken me around the world and have been published by the Los Angeles Times, “PBS NewsHour,” USA Today, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, High Country News and numerous other outlets.

My team’s reporting on Colorado River policy earned us recognition from the Scripps Howard Fund, the Society of Environmental Journalists and the Indigenous Journalists Association. My coverage of hidden cleanup liabilities in California’s oil fields won the 2020 Stokes Award and helped spur passage of a state law meant to protect taxpayers from shouldering the cost of plugging old wells. And my work on South Africa’s abandoned mines prompted a parliamentary investigation in 2018.