By Jack Suntrup WILLOW SPRINGS, Mo. — Signs of industry were everywhere: the hulking petroleum tanks, the steam, the barbed wire—all next to the Eleven Point River in the Ozarks of southern Missouri. Coastal Energy Corp., which sells asphalt and other chemicals for road maintenance and building waterproofing, has operated at the river’s headwaters since…
By Jack Suntrup VAN BUREN, Mo.—The hills surrounding town have begun a quiet thaw. It won’t be long before caravans of families and partiers will roll through for weekends on the rivers. Horses and revelers will slosh through the water; motorboats will speed through it; government will try to manage it. There’s no stretch of the…
By Jack Suntrup Missouri doesn’t have the coal-laced hillsides of other states, yet more than 80 percent of the state’s energy comes from the fossil fuel. The black stuff is shipped in by rail or truck to feed Missouri’s energy appetite. Despite having the potential to help fuel the state with wind turbines, with energy…
By Jack Suntrup CHICAGO—Dave Collyer had the tall task of convincing a room full of scientists that oil sands were good for the continent’s future at a panel discussion at the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences conference in Chicago on Feb. 15. There were plenty of arguments against it: that it takes too…
By Jack Suntrup The world’s fish populations are dwindling. As a result, farm-raised fish selections are growing. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates that half of the fish Americans eat are farm-raised. Aquaculture is a growing trend, seen as essential in feeding the world as natural stocks struggle. But these fish, hand-fed and netted…
Jack is a junior studying journalism and international studies at the University of Missouri. He has always been interested in conservation and the environment, but didn’t seriously take up environmental reporting until this last semester working at the Missourian. There he covered pollution in the Ozark National Scenic Riverways and how city zoning codes could…
Unearthed 