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The Central California Town That Keeps Sinking

A well on land owned by J.G. Boswell Company pumps water into a stand pipe south west of Corcoran in March. CREDIT: Lois Henry

In California’s San Joaquin Valley, the farming town of Corcoran has a multimillion-dollar problem. It is almost impossible to see, yet so vast it takes NASA scientists using satellite technology to fully grasp. Corcoran is sinking.

According to a new investigation by grantees at The Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism, over the past 14 years, the town has sunk as much as 11.5 feet in some places — enough to swallow the entire first floor of a two-story house and to at times make Corcoran one of the fastest-sinking areas in the country, according to experts with the United States Geological Survey.

You can read the full story in The New York Times or on the Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism’s website