If you didn’t know California was experiencing a historic drought, driving through the streets of Beverly Hills and Bel Air would only keep you in the dark. Some of the state’s biggest known water guzzlers live here.
Katharine Mieszkowski
Senior Reporter and Producer
Katharine Mieszkowski is a senior reporter and producer for Reveal. She's also been a senior writer for Salon and Fast Company. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, Slate and on NPR's "All Things Considered."
Her coverage has won national awards, including the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award two years in a row, an Online News Association Award, a Webby Award and a Society of Environmental Journalists Award. Mieszkowski has a bachelor's degree from Yale University. She is based in Reveal's Emeryville, California, office.
Posted inEnvironment, The Secrets of the Drought
The Wet Prince of Bel Air: Who is California’s biggest water guzzler?
One home in wealthy Bel Air, California, used an astonishing 11.8 million gallons of water in one year. The customer, whose identity has not been reve
Posted inEnvironment, The Secrets of the Drought
California won’t identify who’s draining the state’s groundwater
A new law that attempts to preserve California’s precious groundwater comes with a catch: The state will hide the names of people draining this vast underground water source.
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Posted inEnvironment, The Secrets of the Drought
How naming and shaming water wasters helps conservation
When water agencies share data on their customers’ usage, and the public learns who the most egregious water wasters are, it generally leads to stronger conservation efforts. But a 1997 law means agencies are under no obligation to release this information.
Posted inEnvironment, The Secrets of the Drought
To shield tech executives, California’s biggest water users are secret
In the midst of a historic drought, Californians have no way of knowing who’s guzzling the most water. That’s by design, thanks to an obscure 1997 measure that weakened one of the state’s chief open government laws.
Posted inEnvironment, Food Security
Eating mechanically tenderized beef could make you sick
Mechanically tenderized beef has been put through a machine that breaks up the muscle fiber and tough connective tissue with blades or needles. But if there are human pathogens, such as E. coli, on the surface of the meat, the process can push them deep inside the cut, putting you at risk of foodborne illness.
Posted inEnvironment, Food Security
No way to tell if US inspectors of foreign food are doing their job
Though the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has opened foreign offices to help inspect imported food, drugs and products, a new federal report found that these offices don’t have performance measures to track and evaluate specifically how what they do improves food safety.
Posted inFood Security
Your milk’s not contaminated with drugs, FDA says
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration released the results of a study completed over two years ago, which found that more than 99 percent of the milk samples it tested were not tainted with drug residues.
Posted inEnvironment, Food Security
There could be arsenic in your rice. Here’s how to avoid it
Despite pressure from consumer advocates, the federal government has failed to set a limit for arsenic in rice. Officials still are studying the difficult question of whether arsenic in rice has cumulative, long-term health effects.
Posted inFood Security
There might be something else in your milk besides milk
Dairy cows get treated with a variety of medications to help them fight illness, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has yet to release the results of its inquiry – started more than four years ago – into whether these drug are showing up in their milk.