To catch up on what I had missed in my environmental health education, I started reading Werner Troesken’s gripping book, The Great Lead Water Pipe Disaster, which covers more than a century of lead-in-water disasters and the lack of political will to do anything about it. As far back as the eighteenth century, when lead pipes were installed to carry water, we’ve had kids with mysterious illnesses, moms with miscarriages, and adults with neurological complaints.
