Costly Water and Sports Secrets

by Alexandra Andrews
ProPublica, June 2, 2009, 11:16 a.m.

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Here are our editors’ picks from today’s roundup of investigative stories around the Web. Was there a story we missed? Please keep sending us your picks or include them in the comments section below.

Despite a drought that is threatening local water supplies, Merced, Calif., sells its water to Safeway, the supermarket chain, which then bottles it up and resells it at a profit, reports the Merced Sun-Star. What’s more, Safeway’s bottling operation uses roughly 50,000 gallons of water a day. A Merced spokesman said the city treats Safeway as it would any other industrial water consumer.

Also, college athletic departments often cite a 35-year-old student privacy law to hide information about everything from disparities in the treatment of men and women to allegations of players’ criminal conduct, reports the Columbus Dispatch. But the author of that law says it is being misused, and critics worry that the multibillion-dollar world of college sports lacks transparency.