Lucas Dufalla covers the Mississippi River Basin for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. A 2024 graduate of Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, he has worked for news organizations in Pennsylvania and New England.
Cotton Plant, Ark., can’t maintain water infrastructure for its residents. With an aging population and a lack of state resources, long-term solutions seem far from reach.
Millions of rural Americans get their water from districts that serve 10,000 people or less. Thousands of those systems are failing to meet federal standards.
