Abrahm Lustgarten

Reporter

Photo of Abrahm Lustgarten

Abrahm Lustgarten writes about climate change and works frequently with The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic and PBS Frontline, among others. His forthcoming book, “On The Move,” explores how climate change is uprooting American lives and where people will go.

Lustgarten’s recent reporting focuses on global migration, demographic change and conflict in response to a warming climate. His 2022 investigation into how the International Monetary Fund and global finance institutions have kept Barbados and other climate-vulnerable nations paralyzed by high levels of debt led in part to the introduction of the Bridgetown Initiative, a global effort to reform climate finance for developing countries crafted by Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley. In 2020 Lustgarten’s three-story cover series on a great climate-driven migration, published in partnership with the Times Magazine, helped prompt President Joe Biden’s formation of a climate migration study group and research report in the run-up to the COP26 conference in Glasgow, Scotland.

Lustgarten’s other investigations include an examination of the global palm oil trade, the climate drivers of pandemics and BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill (which led to the Emmy-nominated “The Spill” with Frontline, a project he worked on). His 2015 series examining water scarcity in the American West, “Killing the Colorado,” was a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting, received the top journalism honor from the National Academies of Sciences and was also the basis of the 2016 Discovery Channel film “Killing the Colorado,” which Lustgarten co-produced. His early investigation into fracking, starting in 2008, exposed one of the oil industry’s most dangerous legacies — its ongoing threat to America’s drinking water. The work received the George Polk award for environmental reporting, the National Press Foundation award for best energy writing and a Sigma Delta Chi award; it was a finalist for the Goldsmith Prize.

Before joining ProPublica, Lustgarten was a staff writer at Fortune. He holds a master’s in journalism from Columbia University and a bachelor’s in anthropology from Cornell, and was a 2022 Emerson Collective Fellow at New America. He is the author of two books: “Run to Failure: BP and the Making of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster” and “China’s Great Train: Beijing’s Drive West and the Campaign to Remake Tibet.”

Poisoning the Well: How the Feds Let Industry Pollute the Nation's Underground Water Supply

Even as water grows more precious, the Environmental Protection Agency has permitted oil and gas, mining and other industries to contaminate aquifers in more than 1,500 places, many of them in Western states stricken by drought.

Latest Sanction Against BP Goes Beyond Gulf Spill

The government's decision to at least temporarily ban BP from federal contracts is a result of not just the Deepwater Horizon explosion and spill, but years of safety problems at the oil giant.

EPA Officials Weigh Sanctions Against BP’s U.S. Operations

The EPA is considering whether to bar BP from receiving government contracts, a move that would ultimately cost the company billions in revenue and could end its drilling in federally controlled oil fields.

BP Agrees to Plead Guilty to Crimes in Gulf Oil Spill

The Justice Department indicts three BP managers for their roles in the Deepwater Horizon disaster and its aftermath. The company also will pay a $4.5 billion fine, the largest ever levied on a corporation.

The Trillion-Gallon Loophole: Lax Rules for Drillers that Inject Pollutants Into the Earth

As the boom in oil and gas drilling sends a surge of waste into underground injection wells, safeguards for disposing of these materials are sometimes being ignored or circumvented.

State-by-State: Underground Injection Wells

Through the Freedom of Information Act, ProPublica collected annual state regulatory summaries for the underground injection of waste that were submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency between late 2007 and late 2010.

New Study: Fluids From Marcellus Shale Likely Seeping Into PA Drinking Water

Researchers show natural fluids are migrating from thousands of feet underground and reaching drinking water supplies, raising concerns that man-made chemicals and waste could do the same.

Polluted Water Fuels a Battle for Answers

For most of the last decade, Rev. David Hudson has pressed regulators to find out whether his town’s water contamination is related to injection wells. He’s still waiting.

An Unseen Leak, Then Boom

Gas seeps from underground injection wells and triggers explosions in a Kansas town.

Whiff of Phenol Spells Trouble

A landmark case in Ohio topples scientific assumptions as wells guaranteed to entrap waste for at least 10,000 years spring a leak in less than 25.

Injection Wells: The Poison Beneath Us

Lax oversight, uncertain science plague program under which industries dump trillions of gallons of waste underground

The New ‘Dallas’: Sex, Scandal and U.S. Energy Policy!

There’s plenty of cheesy drama in the revamped soap. There’s also fracking and frank discussion about energy.

New Study Predicts Frack Fluids Can Migrate to Aquifers Within Years

A new study has raised fresh concerns about the safety of gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale, concluding that fracking chemicals injected into the ground could migrate toward drinking water supplies far more quickly than experts have previously predicted.

Feds File First Criminal Charges Related to BP Gulf Spill

The charges against former BP engineer Kurt Mix are expected to be the first step in an ongoing investigation that could reach into the executive suite.

A Punishment BP Can’t Pay Off

What is missing is a criminal prosecution that holds BP individuals responsible.

So, Is Dimock’s Water Really Safe to Drink?

Preliminary test data appears to complicate the Environmental Protection Agency’s assurances that the water is safe to drink in a Pennsylvania town (EPA said nothing about cause).

Feds Let BP Off Probation Despite Pending Safety Violations

A Justice Department spokesman said BP had addressed 270 serious violations at the Texas City refinery where 15 workers died in an explosion, but the company is still negotiating with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration over hundreds more.

BP Settlement Leaves Most Complex Claims Unresolved

BP has agreed to pay $7.8 billion to compensate Gulf Coast residents damaged in a massive 2010 oil spill, but the company still faces a criminal investigation and a battery of state lawsuits and federal claims

Years After Evidence of Fracking Contamination, EPA to Supply Drinking Water to Homes in Pa. Town

The federal agency announced it would bring tanks of drinking water to four homes in Dimock, Pa.

Fracking Cracks the Public Consciousness in 2011

The year brings a bumper crop of studies, intensifying health concerns, and a landmark development when environmental regulators conclude hydraulic fracturing likely caused groundwater contamination for the first time.

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