Poison Spring: The Secret History of Pollution and the EPA

When you order a meal in a restaurant, you won't find malathion, kelthane or arsenic listed on the menu as an ingredient of your entrée, but these and scores of other pesticides and dangerous chemicals are in the food we eat. They are dumped into the environment where they seep into our water supply and float in the air we breathe. The use of these poisons is approved-or in some cases, simply ignored--by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Poison Spring documents, in devastating detail, the EPA's corruption and misuse of science and public trust. In its half-century of existence, the agency has repeatedly reinforced the chemical-industrial complex by endorsing deadly chemicals, botching field investigations, turning a blind eye to toxic disasters, and swallowing the self-serving claims of industry. E. G. Vallianatos, who saw the EPA from the inside for more than two decades with rising dismay, reveals in Poison Spring how the agency has allowed our lands and waters to be poisoned with more toxic chemicals than ever. No one who cares for the natural world, or for the health of future generations, can ignore this powerful exposé.

E. G. Vallianatos worked for the Environmental Protection Agency for twenty-five years, and is the author of six books, including Harvest of Devastation and This Land is Their Land. He has written for Alternet.org, Truth-Out.org, and the Huffington Post. He now lives in Claremont, California. McKay Jenkins is an acclaimed environmental journalist and the author of What's Gotten Into Us? Staying Healthy in a Toxic World. Jenkins is the Cornelius Professor of English, Journalism, and Environmental Humanities at the University of Delaware.