The same goes for fluid intake. Babies need about 100 milliliters of fluids per kilogram of body weight per day. The average adult needs only about 35-40 milliliters per kilogram per day. If I drank as much as my son does for the size of his body, I would need about 7 liters of water a day. (I feel good about myself if I finish a single Nalgene.)

While he drains his bottle in the dark, I think of the water it was made with. The water that, up until just nine days before he was born, was flowing through a lead pipe into our home. A matter of days after I wrote this post about why you might want to filter your water at home, I found a Brita pitcher on my porch and a letter from the city water department saying they had identified a lead service line leading to my house.

I was appalled. I mean, I study this stuff. The first thing I did when we bought our house was check the water line. I could see with my own eyes a shiny copper line leading into the house at the shutoff, and could also see the copper coming from the street in the meter pit in the front yard. Given the research about how obviously bad partial service line replacements are for lead leaching, I figured nobody would have done that! I even used pictures from my own house to help write the guidance for RTI International’s Clean Water for U.S. Kids program (where I was working at the time) on how to check for a lead service line in your home. Check the color, scratch the surface, use a magnet, etc. But turns out, these little rules of thumb won’t cut it, especially in older homes (mine was built in 1911). Individual homeowners can check what comes into the house, but they can’t dig potholes in the street to check the utility-owned side of the line for a partial replacement or lead gooseneck (the curved part of the pipe that ties into the water main).

I can’t think of a better example of the need for both the essential services of water utilities and the household water filter industry, or what I have called the “formal” and “informal” water sectors. For over 100 years my house was sitting there with a lead line, and, until recently, regulations didn’t require the utility to do anything about it. In that gap, I hope previous homeowners were filtering their water, and wow am I glad I did so when my first son was born three years ago. Despite my confidence that I didn’t have a lead service line, I still followed my own advice and installed a filter out of precaution. There are just too many unknowns out there. One of them being, it turns out, the few feet of pure lead connected to the water main under the street.

So I’m glad for the additional treatment barrier I could elect to install under my sink, and for the industry that undergirds the manufacture and consumer safety testing of such products. At the same time, I’m also grateful for the city’s efforts to remove those few feet of lead line, despite also having a filter. I can go to Lowes and pick up a filter cartridge; I can’t start digging up my street with a backhoe or drill 50 feet horizontally underneath my house and yard, like these guys:

This is why we need both — the large-scale, costly institutional efforts to improve the quality of public water for whole communities and the individual consumer options to install last-mile barriers where regulations, funding, and central treatment fall short. Now, if only we could devise better ways for these two different but parallel sectors to intersect and collaborate. Where the filter industry could supplement and bolster the work of centralized treatment for compliance and consumer confidence, rather than erode public trust. Or where water filters could be provided through equitable mechanisms of service delivery, like the water flowing through the pipes, not just as a privilege for those who can afford it. The Brita pitcher that showed up on my porch is one example, but a temporary one; a stopgap used by utilities while disturbing the lines. There could be better ways as water filter technology and monitoring improves. More on that later, perhaps.

For now, I’ll leave you with this: a video of my son, Jamie, at 6 months—his brain at this stage a sponge to the neurotoxic effects of lead—taking his first sips of water.

When my wife and I bought our house a few years ago, the neighbors told us, “I think there’s something in the water.”

Two previous couples had owned the house, each for a two year stint, gotten pregnant, then moved away. They saw another young couple move in—with no kids—and thought it pertinent to warn us. Well sure enough, we had our first child about 9 months later.

Of course, nobody ever thought there was actually something in the water, we were just predictable buyers. Another young couple at the same life stage, attracted to the same little farm house aesthetic. But isn’t that turn of speech interesting? We see a pattern and, humorously, we blame it on the water. Maybe that reveals something deeply suspicious and skeptical in our shared consciousness, like the character Bobbie Markowe’s paranoia in The Stepford Wives: “I think there’s something in the water turning us into house-fraus!” The phrase quickly veers into horror, too, conjuring ideas of mind-control and great white sharks coming from the deep. But, boringly, I prefer to think that our reliance on the phrase actually tells of a shared understanding of the importance of water quality to our collective well-being.

The earliest instance of the phrase I could find dates to 1855 in a collection of reports entitled Food and its Adulterations: Comprising the Reports of the Analytical Sanitary Commission of “The Lancet” by Arthur Hill Hassall, M.D. This was a time when the scientific community still did not fully understand germ theory and physicians were struggling to explain how diseases spread through the population. Cholera was a dreaded killer in 1850s Europe (and still is today in many places). But the possibility that it was spread through the water was still a new idea. “It is well known that cholera raged with frightful and destructive violence in … mining towns and villages in South Wales,” reads the report. “And in all these places I heard the opinion expressed by many of the population that it was something in the water.” (The creepy suspicion around the water supply in The Stepford Wives was simply the day-to-day reality in the 19th century).

In any case, our adoption of epidemiological language to explain curious patterns or quirks shows, I think, that people have an embedded understanding of risk associated with drinking water. Our regulatory framework, too, reflects what we intuitively know. Something called the Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR), established by an amendment to the Safe Drinking Water Act in 1996, is essentially the federal government’s acknowledgement that “there’s something in the water.” There are more possibilities than we can control and we know it. But! We can at least monitor what’s there. The UCMR does this by establishing the Contaminant Candidate List or CCL, which is a formal list published by the EPA every five years with chemical and microbial contaminants that are currently unregulated, but are “known or anticipated to occur in public water systems.” The EPA is currently monitoring for 30 contaminants out of the 66 listed in the fifth iteration of the CCL, referred to as the CCL5.

In my class on water quality and health this semester, my students were a little unnerved to learn about the UCMR and CCL. When you pull back the curtain and realize there’s a long running list of potentially harmful things that could be in our water but we don’t know much about, it takes some rethinking. I don’t mean to fearmonger, nor cast distrust on the system (my questionable choice of cover photo for this post aside). As I wrote about in my last post, that’s just counterproductive. But the point is, there are unknowns. And facing up to them is a little uncomfortable at first.

So, I asked the students in my class to choose a contaminant (other than PFAS) that interested them from the CCL5 and demystify it by writing a short blog post about it. I wanted them to dig into the science of these obscure contaminants in our drinking water supplies. What are they? Where do they come from? What does the research indicate about the risk posed? Why the heck are they on this list? Understanding the science is the antidote to trading in fear.

Below are a few excerpts from the best posts. The students grappled with issues of risk, uncertainty, policy, and regulation. They didn’t shy away from taboo topics and thoughtfully explored the equity issues surrounding different contaminants. In short, I was proud of them. They made me laugh, think, and learn some new things. I share these here (with their permission) in hopes they do the same for you.

Legionella: A Danger in the Mist
Alice Godwin

Have you heard of Legionella? No, unfortunately, it’s not a new gelato flavor. Instead, it’s a bacteria lurking in water that can cause serious illness. Legionellosis, the disease it causes, comes in two forms: Legionnaires’ disease, a severe type of pneumonia, and Pontiac fever, a milder flu-like illness. People become infected by breathing in tiny water droplets contaminated with the bacteria, like mist from showers, hot tubs, or cooling towers. While Pontiac fever is usually mild, Legionnaires’ disease can be life-threatening, particularly for vulnerable populations … Each year, between 8,000 and 18,000 people in the U.S. are hospitalized with Legionnaires' disease according to the EPA … Legionella bacteria can thrive in water systems when certain conditions are present. Stagnant water allows biofilms, a slimy layer of bacteria and other microorganisms, to form, creating a perfect breeding ground … The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Waterborne Disease Epidemiologist stated, “From a public health standpoint, we don’t recognize any safe level of Legionella… The issue is, since Legionella isn’t currently regulated, it’s difficult to determine what levels are ‘safe’—we’re focused more on addressing high levels when they pose a clear health risk.” It is a difficult grey-area to navigate, as public health agencies are looking to respond to and monitor a bacteria that no one is required to test for.

BPA in Water: Should You Be Concerned?
Peter Bernot

Walking down the isle of my local supermarket, I pass thousands of products wrapped in plastic. I have been trying to be more aware of my plastic consumption, as I know with microplastic research that it is not the best option for me or the planet. When I eventually reach the canned vegetables, I am happy to buy them because I think they are safer and plastic free. When I pick up a can of black beans, I notice a “BPA Free” tag in the right corner. “What is BPA?” I think, unaware of the major risks that lie in canned products and the world of BPA chemicals … Bisphenol A or BPA is a popular, massively produced chemical used in a wide range of products to produce polycarbonate plastics … BPA is currently not being monitored by the EPA but could be in the future if the evidence presents itself as a major concern … It is important to take a precautionary approach for [BPA’s] known hormone-disrupting effects. Even though the levels could be low in water in some areas, it is better to be safe. As discussed by [the professionals I interviewed], it would be beneficial to stop BPA from getting into people’s bodies through all potential manners. The best step, however, is reducing the production of them in the first place.

The Ugly Side of Beauty
Allie Meisler

It’s 2025 and everything is seemingly out to get us. The water we drink, the air we breathe, and even the makeup we put on our face, all of it comes with warnings, risks, and the ever-looming possibility of causing cancer. One of those lurking threats? N-Nitrosodiethylamine (NDEA), a disinfection byproduct (DBP) that isn’t just in your tap water but also in cosmetics, tobacco, and even some medications. The kicker? Despite its known health risks, it’s not even federally regulated in drinking water … Certain communities are more likely to be exposed to NDEA and other DBPs in their drinking water, particularly those relying on surface water sources like rivers and reservoirs. Rural areas, low-income communities, and places with aging water infrastructure may face higher risks, as their treatment facilities might struggle to balance effective disinfection with minimizing harmful byproducts. Additionally, resort towns or areas with seasonal water use can experience fluctuating water quality, leading to higher DBP levels when water sits in storage for long periods. Environmental justice concerns arise when underfunded or historically marginalized communities lack the resources to upgrade water treatment systems, monitor contaminants more frequently, or advocate for stronger regulations, leaving them disproportionately exposed to potential health risks.

The invisible toxin in your shampoo...and your water!
Azul Ocampo-Manzo

Imagine this: you step into a warm shower, wash your hair with your favorite shampoo, and let the soapy water wash down the drain. The scent is refreshing, the bubbles feel luxurious, and you’re left feeling clean. But what if I told you that hidden inside that bottle (and inside your water supply) is a chemical linked to cancer? A chemical that doesn’t even have to be listed on the label. Meet 1,4-Dioxane, a sneaky, colorless liquid that has found its way into our water, our homes, and our bodies. … 1,4-Dioxane isn’t something you can see, taste, or smell. However, it’s not deliberately added to products or water - it’s a byproduct, an uninvited guest created during the manufacturing of shampoos, soaps, detergents, and even some baby products … It travels down your drain, through wastewater treatment plants (which,unfortunately, aren’t designed to remove it), and straight into rivers and groundwater. And from there, it can end up in your drinking water. … The EPA classifies 1,4-Dioxane as a “likely human carcinogen,” meaning long-term exposure could increase the risk of cancer. The chemical is also linked to liver and kidney damage and can be absorbed through both ingestion and skin contact. Communities across the U.S. are already facing the consequences. Long Island, New York, for example. Testing in recent years revealed alarming levels of 1,4-Dioxane in the local water supply, leading to lawsuits and costly filtration upgrades. New York became the first state to set its own drinking water limit for 1,4-Dioxane at 1 part per billion, but no other states have followed suit.

The Price of Perfection: 1,4-Dioxane’s Hidden Threat in Beauty and Water
Max Peery

As a self-proclaimed movie buff, I usually gravitate toward Oscar-worthy films,
particularly those that explore social conflict. One film that caught my attention this year was The Substance. In a desperate attempt to stay young and remain in the industry, she takes a mysterious substance—with unintended consequences. … The film vividly illustrates the toll beauty products and societal pressures can take on the body, with the protagonist becoming grotesquely deformed. This resonated with audiences because it made the often-overlooked impact of everyday products feel immediate and tangible. These products are usually slow-acting dangers with hidden risks, but the film makes their impact vividly clear … What does a film critiquing the beauty industry have to do with water quality? Enter 1,4-Dioxane—a chemical as invisible as the societal pressures The Substance exposes. Unlike the film’s grotesque transformations, 1,4-Dioxane lurks silently in beauty products, water systems, and, ultimately, our bodies. Colorless and highly soluble, it moves effortlessly from products to watersheds to human consumption. So why is this chemical an issue? Well, currently Dioxane is on the EPA’s CCL 5 list, which identifies high-concern contaminants. It has been found in 45 states with 39 of those putting up a health advisory affecting over 100 million Americans.

Is Thiamethoxam the “Next Big Thing” in Water Contaminants?
Emma Jauron

Thiamethoxam (TMX) belongs to a class of insecticides called neonicotinoids (neonics). … A research scientist at the University of Iowa told me, “The primary use of thiamethoxam is to kill sucking and chewing insects that feed on plant tissues. Neonics in general, and thiamethoxam in particular, are widely used as seed treatments. It’s difficult to buy seed corn which isn’t treated with at least one neonic.” Corn is not only food; it also produces a variety of products. Meaning there is a larger list of TMX users than one believes. The list would include farmers, seed-producing companies, ethanol users, livestock, meat eaters, industrial products consumers (starch, sweeteners, corn oil, and beverage and industrial alcohols), etc. Even though the top user of TMX is corn, many other plants have TMX seed coating. … An Iowa study compared the concentrations of neonics in well water by testing the farmers' urine. 100% of the urine and 6% of the well samples were positive for TMX … Farmers have the highest risk, but water treatment plants do not regulate TMX. If many farms are near the drinking water source, then every citizen is at risk of it entering their system.

Killing Weeds or Killing People? Diuron in Our Water (I know this is way too alarmist, but I liked the vibe)
Cooper Kern

Diuron is a powerful herbicide widely used to control weeds before they
sprout. Its ability to stop unwanted plant growth makes it a powerful tool
for farmers and landscapers alike, but the risks of this chemical, which is
prone to lingering in our environment for extended time periods, have been
linked to serious adverse health effects. The EPA considers diuron an
emergent contaminant, meaning it has been found in public drinking water and
is treated as a potential risk. As with many of the emerging contaminants
identified by the EPA, the dangers of diuron are still largely unknown … One user of diuron is Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, which employs it to mitigate the spread of noxious weeds. I spoke to the manager of the summer “mountain projects” team responsible for weed management. The most important thing I learned from him was that people using diuron and similar chemicals often have no idea about the potential negative health effects or environmental impact. From his perspective, he is required to get rid of weeds, and the best tool for the job is the one he will use … The real problem is that we don’t know how dangerous diuron is, and the people using it don’t know either.

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This is a question I get a lot.

If you Google it, you’ll get thousands of results: endless companies trying to sell you something, fear-mongering Reddit threads, vaguely expert-sounding health and wellness blogs, lifestyle gurus, fired up environmental advocacy sites, and so on. I can see why people get confused. Is all this really necessary? Is this actually a problem I should do something about, or this some fringe granola conspiracy stuff about our water?

Part of the problem, it seems to me, is that there are two main messages circulating and intertwining out there: drinking water in the United States is the safest in the world and drinking water in the United States is a heinous cocktail of toxic chemicals. Which is it? When people ask “Should I filter my water?”, this is the question underneath the question. Whether they realize it or not, people are asking: can I trust my water utility? And, by extension, can I trust my city or town, my state health agency, the EPA? Can I trust whoever it is who is supposed to be watching out for my tap water? People mainly just want a yes/no answer and a link to what filter they should buy, but at it’s root, it is a question about governance, about trust in the institutions on which we depend. A wolf of a question, wrapped in sheep’s clothing.

So perhaps you can understand why I sigh to myself when someone asks me this, especially in a context where trust in public institutions is eroding. Here we go, I think, do you want the long answer or the short answer?

Here’s the long answer.

In my view, the reason for the duality in messaging about our water quality is at least in part due to the duality of the water industry itself.

On one hand, you have what I would call the “formal” water industry—that is, the utilities, operators, engineers, and consultants busied with keeping the water flowing for 280+ million Americans who get their water from public systems—which has a vested interest in protecting the brand of their product: clean water. And, to be fair, it’s not about making a profit. With the tension between massively costly infrastructure improvements and demands for affordable water rates, the margins of the water business are incredibly narrow, and getting smaller. The American Water Works Association’s 2024 State of the Water Industry report found that over half of water utilities struggle to cover the full cost of service. About 10% of utilities report not being able to cover their costs at all. Investments in water infrastructure in the U.S. fall short by nearly $100 billion per year compared to what is needed to keep up. So the water industry’s efforts to ensure its product enjoys a positive public perception is, in large part, about maintaining public support so that rates and investments can appropriately grow with the costs of the service. It’s about financial sustainability to continue providing a public good.

On the other hand, you have the “informal” water sector. These are the companies, industry groups, and trade organizations representing the decentralized water treatment market. By “informal” I don’t mean that the stakeholders, companies, or agencies on this side of things are in any way illegitimate—this is an advanced, multi-billion dollar industry that fills a crucial role—but they do not operate under the same systems of governance as public water systems. And on this side, the product is decentralized water treatment, i.e., water filters.

They come in all different shapes and sizes—for your faucet, for your countertop, for your refrigerator, for your shower, for your whole house etc.—but in order to sell they all rely on one thing: there has to be (or you have to believe that there is) a water quality problem. You have to be concerned about something: a bad taste or smell, something that isn’t being taken out by the utility, something that isn’t regulated by the EPA, something that comes from the pipes in your home. Consider the webpage of one popular home water filter brand. The home page displays an image of a woman drinking crystal clear ice water by a fancy pool and says: “Meet clean, healthy water.” Well what does that imply about my water without the filter?

So, inevitably, the brand of the “informal” water industry undermines that of the “formal.” Or put another way, the water filter market tends to undercut trust in water utilities.

Now I’m not saying that these two industries are enemies or antagonistic. In fact, they don’t really compete in their business models at all, as far as I can tell. You can still pay your water bill and buy a filter for your home. And there are actually examples of partnerships between these two industries like how Denver Water supplies water filters to customers in advance of lead service line replacements, something that will become more and more common under the Lead and Copper Rule Improvements. But the issue I see is that these two industries do compete in people’s consciousness, even if not directly with each other in their business. That creates confusion. And confusion generally seems to favor the water filter industry and sows mistrust against water providers.

Take, for example, the fact that 20% of people served by public water systems do not think their water is “safe,” up from 12% five years ago. This trend seems to be mirrored by increasing interest in the terms “water filter” and “drinking water” in Google searches and is likely catalyzed by high profile events in the last decade such as the Flint water crisis, widespread boil water advisories, and the EPA’s actions on PFAS (to name a few). Such events merely add to the confusion people feel, their sense of mistrust, and their proclivity to start asking: “Should I filter my water?”

In many ways, I see this as an unfortunate trend. Water utilities and operators must do their best with very limited resources and staff. Nationally, the declining water industry workforce means older staff are having to do more with less. They provide an absolutely essential service that is often unglamorous, unthanked, and undervalued. Ire toward our utilities and the people keeping them running is largely misdirected and counterproductive to public health. People forget, or never knew, that investments in municipal water treatment in the last century were largely responsible for the most dramatic decline in mortality in U.S. history, nearly eradicating deaths from infectious waterborne diseases in just a few decades. Just consider the numbers: in 1900, before centralized treatment of drinking water was commonplace, babies were dying at a rate of nearly 19%. That is, for every 100 babies born, 19 died. Just a few decades later, once filtration and chlorination of drinking water were broadly adopted, that rate fell by nearly two-thirds. Imperfect though they may be, public water systems are still one of the most important front-line protectors of public health.

That should be our baseline shared understanding. The water coming out of your tap is a public health miracle. We need to continue to support these institutions with everything we’ve got.

At the same time though—there are also some legitimate reasons to install a filter in your home. There are gaps, blind spots, and failures. The “formal” industry may be tempted to rest on its laurels as the OG of public health, roll its eyes at what it sees as spurious concerns, and resist change. During two graduate degrees in environmental engineering, one focused on the traditional aspects of engineering design and optimization and the other focused more on public health, I saw both sides of this coin. In the hard-core engineering program, I was taught the “formal” industry mantra: drinking water in the U.S. is the best in the world. Water utilities comply with more stringent standards even than bottled water (which is true). Water filters are for sissies (paraphrasing, but that’s kind of what came across to me).

Contrast that with what I learned in the public health program: there are massive unregulated unknowns in our drinking water with uncertain human health risks (two good articles on this here and here). New drinking water contaminants are being discovered all the time. Our water systems are aging and ill-equipped to meet future challenges. And the EPA’s decision-making is so hopelessly back-and-forth that it takes decades to revise water quality standards (the story of perchlorate is one good example). From a precautionary perspective alone, adding a treatment step at the point-of-use is not a crazy idea. On top of that, there are also chronic health violations and serious equity issues around compliance with existing drinking water standards among public systems. And that’s just for people served by water utilities. There are also over 50 million Americans who get their water from private wells and aren’t protected by the Safe Drinking Water Act to begin with. Perhaps most impactful of all, in my own education, were my interactions with several communities of private well users in North Carolina who were downright desperate for good information on their water quality and wanted to know if water filters could help.

That was the focus of my dissertation. At the end of it all, I feel like the data I spent three years painstakingly gathering and analyzing was (is) a drop in the bucket compared to the need for data on this topic. But I can say this—household water filters offered a reprieve to communities who felt otherwise forgotten and ignored. A glimmer of relief (it would be too much to say “hope” given that it did not change their fundamental reality). But, as my research showed, filters offered an effective means of reducing harmful exposures to lead and PFAS in some very polluted areas.

So my answer comes down to this: yes, filter your water if you have cause for concern. This may be that you’re in a highly industrial area, your water system has consistent violations,1 you live in an old house with the potential for lead pipes and plumbing,2 or you have vulnerable people living in your home such as very young children. If you’re on a private well, definitely yes. In general, try to get your water tested first, if you can, to help identify what kind of filter to buy that is best suited to your water (that’s a whole ‘nother can of worms that I’ll get to next).

Also, yes, if you feel compelled and can afford it, go ahead and filter your water even if one of these criterion doesn’t apply—out of an abundance of caution, knowing that there are many unknowns. But in both cases, whether you are addressing known or unknown risks, know that (unless you are on a well) you are also on the receiving end of a selfless, hardworking, resource-strapped system that also needs our support. Lend this support to your local water utility in conversation with others, through your water bill, your taxes, and public engagement. Take measures to conserve water in your home to help reduce treatment costs. Protect our water supplies by disposing of hazardous waste properly (what a pain, I know, but it matters). Be mindful of how you get rid of unused medicines (only a few high risk drugs are actually on FDA’s “Flush List”). Volunteer for or organize a local river cleanup or donate to low-income water bill assistance programs.

Water quality improvement takes a village. Sure, we can start at our own taps by installing a filter but we must move outward from there.

So that’s the long answer. Now for the short answer—do I filter my water at home? Yes I do.

John Hancock has a pair of old binoculars on the dash of his dusty, white pickup truck, next to a tiny Buddha figurine and a flamingo ornament dangling from the rear view mirror.

He picks me up from the airport and we wander through back roads around Airway Heights, Washington—an area known as the West Plains. It is a disorienting journey through family farms, used car lots, gravel pit mines, casinos, shipping depots, rail yards, swaths of industrial warehouses, and prison complexes. A push for economic development in the last decades has created a strange, irregular patchwork of big industries interspersed with paint-peeled homesteads waiting to be sold.

The reason for this tour is more than a lesson in economic development, though. We end the tour at the chain link back fence of our destination: Fairchild Air Force Base. Below the economic forces changing the landscape on its surface, an even longer-running tide has been changing the West Plains from underneath, albeit unseen till the last ten years or so. John hands me the binoculars. Airplane hangars line the whole field of view, the whale-like tails of big military transport aircraft jutting out in the distance. The black body of a carcassed fuselage catches my eye.

“Several times a month for 40 years,” he tells me. “That’s where they did their fire training with AFFF,” referring to the foam used for fighting liquid fuel fires, common at military bases, airports, and firefighter training sites. Some 40,000 gallons of foam were sprayed on this site, he tells me, the charred airplane skeleton lit up and doused again and again as an exercise. As a result, the groundwater beneath this spot contains nearly 180,000 parts per trillion of toxic PFAS,1 a truly stunning amount that moves through the aquifer toward the Spokane River, contaminating land and water in its path. Compare that to the maximum allowable level in drinking water, recently set by the EPA, of just 4 parts per trillion for two of the PFAS detected at Fairchild and your head will start to spin.

Wielding both levity and gravitas, John unravels the story of PFAS on the West Plains as we drive. He pulls a map from the dashboard and hands it to me. “These are the paleochannels. You know what those are right?” I don’t. (I was never a very good student of geology). He traces his finger northeast from the base in the direction that the groundwater flows through old river beds, filled in with with trillions of tons of gravel and sand by massive glacial floods during the last ice age. I can’t even fathom it. But the paleochannels are there all the same, funneling PFAS from the air force base to the fields and neighborhoods and drinking water wells of the West Plains.

Land that was once a bounty is now a source of fear and grief. Farmers in the wake of Fairchild have had loan applications for irrigation equipment suddenly denied when it was discovered PFAS were in the water at such alarming levels. Families who moved to the lovely pine-covered bluffs of the West Plains now wonder what will happen to their property values. Some question whether cancer in their community, even deaths in their family, are linked to PFAS in the water (a link that is frustratingly difficult to make, and still being investigated). “Poisoned Wells Courtesy of Fairchild Air Force Base” reads a sign outside one home, a wellhead peaking out from the grass behind. We drive on.

After our tour, John takes me to talk with others in the community who are organizing themselves to advocate for solutions. “A test for everyone who needs one, and a filter for everyone who wants one,” John says. That’s their aim. It’s a good one, and it has resonated with many across the West Plains, so much so that the non-profit that John founded — the West Plains Water Coalition — now has over 450 members.

I’ve been invited here to give a talk on water filters in particular: how well they work for PFAS and how to choose one for your home, a topic I spent several years of my life thinking about during my PhD. I’ve got my slides and citations, my tips and pointers and so on, which perhaps I’ll write about next on this blog. But it’s different when you’re here on the ground with people hearing their stories, witnessing their grief. I feel myself doling out incomplete and unsatisfactory answers. Not because I don’t know the science on this—I do. But the science is full of caveats. And besides, it can’t really say much to people’s pain.

“What can I do about gardening?” one woman asks me, afraid that the PFAS in her well water is contaminating her garden produce. “Now I just throw all my vegetables out and mourn.” I stumble through a response.

“I’m a concerned land owner, and a particularly incensed citizen,” another gentleman tells me. I just nod.

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Let me start with this basic question: Do you know where your water comes from?

Think about it. Try to trace it back from the faucet, all the way through the twisted network of pipes through your house or condo or apartment building and into the ground.

Perhaps you have a house on a well and the pipe runs toward an overgrown borehole in the yard, down into the mysterious pore space of the aquifer beneath. Or, perhaps your mental line goes out under the street, then across the city every which way until it reaches a treatment plant. Keep tracing it backwards through the various basins, pumps, and valves until you reach the intake on the other side. Imagine it—what’s there? A hole in the ground? A mighty river? A vast reservoir? A muddy ditch full of crawdads? (This last one is where I end up).

Now try to answer this: is that water “safe”? Meaning, is it protected from the offscouring of society? You know: industrial waste, human sewage, runoff from roads, rotting old tires. And subsequently, do the processes that guide it from source to tap ensure that it is clean by the time it reaches your faucet? Are there any barriers between you and that hole in the ground at all?

Most likely, if you live in a city, the answer is yes. Yes, there are probably some source protections in place. Yes, the existing treatment processes are probably adequate. Yes, there are multiple barriers of protection. For most people, interlocking systems of nature, technology, and governance fit together like puzzle pieces to ensure water is reasonably safe to drink when it finally reaches the tap.

For others, though, those processes do fail. Chemicals spill. People make mistakes. Pipes corrode. Sewers overflow. Fires rage. Things just break. For still others, like many private well users, there is nothing to fail in the first place; what comes out of the tap is the full, unmitigated cocktail of whatever water, the ever-welcoming solvent, has picked up along the way.

The point here is to envision the process: the twists and turns and snags of it.

The feats of engineering and the enduring vulnerabilities. Healthy and sick, children and elderly, rich and poor, White and Black, citizen and immigrant, urban and rural: we all are on the receiving end of a labyrinthine journey from source to tap (and back around). We live from this substance that, if we could truly see what it sees on its never-ending cycle, we would stand in awe at the complexity, interconnectedness, and human ingenuity involved. And also, maybe, horror at the messiness, the fragility, and the simple unfairness we would witness.

Take, for example, the fact that in the United States nearly half a million households (almost 1.5 million people) are estimated to lack indoor plumbing at all. We would see these families filling buckets from unprotected springs, hauling water from old wells, lugging grocery carts full of bottled water while many of their neighbors quietly open the faucet. Who are these people? Some researchers looking at U.S. Census data found that they are, more often than not: American Indian and Alaskan Natives. Black. Hispanic. Renters. Low-income. Do you know some of them?

We might see this more clearly too: toxic chemicals in fire fighting foam sprayed onto a blazing fuel fire, perhaps decades ago, slowly, stealthily, inexorably weaving through the earth to finally come across—what’s this?—a well screen. Up it goes, into the unsuspecting well owner’s glass, or coffee, or baby formula. Or, we would watch as the protective scale inside thousands of pipes in Flint, Michigan crumbled and dissolved, baring the long-ignored lead pipes beneath. Elsewhere, we might bump shoulders with some of the nastiest human pathogens: Vibrio cholerae, Cryptosporidium parvum, Legionella pneumophila, silently infiltrating, looking for a host.

The study of water quality gives us glimpses of what water sees in its path. It can tell us about the nature of pollution, risk, public health, and inequality. As a group of students and researchers, the Equal Water Lab will be a place to explore these glimpses. We will look at when, where, and how water quality risks emerge, and what can be done about it. We will consider the ways in which we can predict whose water is safe and whose isn’t (sometimes with remarkable accuracy) just from different social realities. We will look at how water quality challenges affect real communities, and the decisions they must make. We will dig into new research and try to make sense of it. And, as we follow our noses, we will almost certainly wander and muse into other environmental health topics.

But here at the beginning, I want to know: as you follow your water, what questions do you have? What concerns you? How and where can our research have impact and shed light? Let me know in the comments below, and subscribe to follow our work.