Poison Spring
The Secret History of Pollution and the EPA
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ISBN10: 1608199142
ISBN13: 9781608199143
Hardcover
304 Pages
$28.00
CA$33.00
Imagine walking into a restaurant and finding chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides, or neonicotinoid insecticides listed in the description of your entree. They may not be printed in the menu, but many are in your food.
These are a few of the literally millions of pounds of approved synthetic substances dumped into the environment every day, not just in the US but around the world. They seep into our water supply, are carried thousands of miles by wind and rain from the site of application, remain potent long after they are deposited, and constitute, in the words of one scientist, "biologic death bombs with a delayed time fuse and which may prove to be, in the long run, as dangerous to the existence of mankind as the arsenal of atom bombs." All of these poisons are sanctioned--or in some cases, ignored--by the EPA.
For twenty-five years E.G. Vallianatos saw the EPA from the inside, with rising dismay over how pressure from politicians and threats from huge corporations were turning it from the public's watchdog into a "polluter's protection agency." Based on his own experience, the testimony of colleagues, and hundreds of documents Vallianatos collected inside the EPA, Poison Spring reveals how the agency has continually reinforced the chemical-industrial complex.
Writing with acclaimed environmental journalist McKay Jenkins, E.G. Vallianatos provides a devastating exposé of how the agency created to protect Americans and our environment has betrayed its mission. Half a century after after Rachel Carson's Silent Spring awakened us to the dangers of pesticides, we are poisoning our lands and waters with more toxic chemicals than ever.
Reviews
Praise for Poison Spring
"Makes a solid, damning case against putting political appointees in charge of a regulatory agency, as well as corporate claims about product safety. Poison Spring is Vallianatos' call to arms, urging American consumers to hold their government accountable for policies that protect and reward polluters."—Associated Press
"An alarming, comprehensive account of a 'fatally compromised' EPA mission crippled by bad enforcement practices and numerous corrupting influences."—Publishers Weekly, (starred review)
"In this riveting indictment, Vallianatos and Jenkins valiantly divulge the blinding greed and unfathomable stupidity behind the unconscionable lies and travesties—assaults against the very fabric of life. A resounding call for genuine and sustained environmental responsibility."—Booklist, starred review
"Like biologist Rachel Carson, Vallianatos, former staff scientist at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Jenkins sound the alarm about toxins in common use…An indictment that implicates pesticides in wildlife and livestock die-offs, as well as in human maladies and deaths."—Library Journal "Written with a strong dose of moral urgency, Poison Spring is a tragic and deeply troubling insider's account of the EPA that will raise the hair on the back of your neck. This is a book for all Americans who need to be aware that an agency set up to regulate chemicals has vilified some of its own employees for carrying out that mission, falsely classified toxic substances as "inert," undermined the laboratories of scientists producing evidence inconvenient to industry, and relied on faked studies by a rogue, privately run lab—in the paid service of chemical companies themselves—to register and license hundreds of chemicals. A brave book about a chilling chapter in U.S. environmental history."— Ted Steinberg, author of Down to Earth: Nature's Role in American History and Gotham Unbound: The Ecological History of Greater "If you read one book this about about chemical pollution, let it be this powerful and important history. In Poison Spring, authors E.G. Vallianatos and McKay Jenkins document in the most compelling - and chilling - detail our government's reluctance to protect every day citizens rather than powerful corporations. The book stands both as an indictment and as a deeply eloquent call to action."—Deborah Blum, author, The Poisoner's Handbooks: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz-Age New York "Poison Spring, an insider's look at a failed federal agency, should alarm every citizen who believes the EPA's middle name ought to mean something. This is an important, clear-eyed, and carefully documented story of how the EPA, once so full of promise, is played by the industries it is supposed to regulate and weakened by the allies of those same industries in government."—William Souder author of On a Farther Shore: The Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson, Author of Silent Spring