Drinking Water

September 10, 2012
Writing in the popular style of world history seen through the lens of a commodity, Duke professor Salzman details the changing approaches that environmentalists, governments, and the open market have taken to this essential of life. Through exploring core questions in water management—whether people have a right to access drinking water, whether it “should be managed as a commodity for sale or a public good,” what it means for water to be clean and safe—Salzman lucidly addresses controversial topics, such as the Clean Water Act and what it does and doesn’t ensure about the safety of our water supply; risks from arsenic contamination and fracking; the benefits of systemwide versus point of use purification; and whether it helps or hurts communities to sell access to their water sources to private corporations. A special focus on the New York City area brings stories about the slaughterhouse-tainted “Collect,” the Tea Water Pump, and the creation of Chase Manhattan Bank under the pretense of privatized water management in the late 1700s, and the building of the massive Croton Reservoir, which was inaugurated in 1842. Finally, Salzman discusses approaches that may define future water use, such as desalinization, investment in infrastructure, and harvesting water from space. Salzman puts a needed spotlight on an often overlooked but critical social, economic, and political resource. Illus. Agent: Doris Michaels, Doris S. Michaels Literary Agency.

September 15, 2012
Salzman (Law and Environmental Policy/Duke Univ.) looks at the history of drinking water and how it is connected to a range of global environmental, social and political issues. The drinking of water, writes the author, is "one of the few human actions and conditions that are truly universal," and the quest for potable water is intertwined with nearly every aspect of human life. Inspired by popular histories such as Mark Kurlansky's Salt (2002), Salzman presents a broad examination of drinking water through the ages. He examines mythological and religious ideas surrounding drinking water, referencing Ponce de Leon's fabled quest for the Fountain of Youth, the reputedly healing waters at Lourdes in southern France and centuries-old Jewish and Islamic drinking-water laws. The author then embarks on a wide-ranging discussion of water safety, including natural arsenic contamination and terrorist threats to water supplies. Other major subjects include the amazing rise of bottled water and the politics of water access in places such as New York City, McCloud, Calif., and Cochabamba, Bolivia. As might be evident by this description, Salzman covers a lot of ground in this relatively short book, rarely resting very long on one subject before jumping to the next, and he rattles off facts at a rapid-fire pace. With so many areas to cover, it's no surprise that he ends with the perfunctory assertion that "[t]he story of drinking water is still being written." The book is consistently entertaining, however, and Salzman delivers it all in a light, accessible style. An appealing, fact-filled overview of the most basic necessity of human life.

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