Water Runs Dry in Wyoming Coal Country

Over the last 40 years, LJ Turner has paid a heavy price for the development of energy resources in Wyoming’s Powder River Pasin, losing not only his family ranch’s abundant water, but also 6,000 acres he once leased as grazing land. American taxpayers everywhere have paid a price, too. The federal government owns most of the coal, oil and gas in the ground, and it has fostered mining and drilling through a host of subsidies that permit fossil fuel corporations to privatize the benefits while socializing many of the costs.