Troubled Water: What’s Wrong with What We Drink

This book “Troubled Water: What’s Wrong with What We Drink” is a timely reminder of the horrors of contaminated water. The book “Troubled Water” though focuses on water issues in the USA but its narrative is reflective of the global situation.

The author Seth M. Siegel is known as a water activist and surveys the widest possible scene of water availability and consumption. The author shows the widespread nature of the problem, relating chilling stories and interviews with experts, activists and victims.

The causes are varied: chemicals from factories seeping into groundwater, lead leeching into pipes, deficiencies in Environmental Protection Agency policies, and the multiplicity of small, private water utilities exempt from testing regulations.

At the beginning of the narrative, the author grabs readers with an up-close-and-personal story of a son’s response to his father’s death from kidney cancer after their town became home to a factory producing Teflon.

Unfortunately, he does not see the drinking water industry as open to new ideas and he urges bipartisan support in American Congress to adopt measures that encourage innovation. He includes some of his own recommendations, such as consolidating small water utilities, funding research through a tax on disposable water bottles, replacing old water pipes with smart ones, adopting nano-filtration techniques.

The general remit of the book is all-pervasive and pertains to a global audience. The author’s concluding suggestions about how readers can protect themselves from impure drinking water are less than reassuring, perhaps designed to spur action. ‘Troubled Water’ presents hard truths about our drinking water which is less safe than we deserve.