How Safe Is Your WATER?

摘要

Robin Smith got up her nerve. A housewife in Mechanicsburg, Virginia, she got her tap water tested—a step few Americans dare to take. Smith's envelope came back from the laboratory with bad news. "We don't drink our water," she says flatly. "Haven't for three years." The amount of lead in her water, the lab reported, was more than double the level at which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency advises people to take corrective measures. Smith can't afford to replace the pipes in her home, and she realizes that swallowed lead could damage her brain cells and those of her two-year-old twins. So she hauls drinking water by car from the homes of her sister or her mother-in-law, who live nearby. Smith is just one of many Americans who are concerned about the quality of their drinking water.