The library

Guides

• How to read your water quality reportFind your utility’s annual Consumer Confidence Report, and read the contaminant table, the lead section, and the violations like someone who knows what they mean.Homeowners
• Private well testing: what to test, and whenBuild a testing plan for your well from what’s nearby, then read the results against the standards public water has to meet.Homeowners
• How to read an NPDES effluent limits tableTurn the limits table in a discharge permit into plain sentences, then check a month of results against weekly and monthly averages, in concentration and in pounds per day.BusinessesEnvironmental pros

Lessons

• From Cloud to TapWhat's really in your water?

  Follow one drop of water from the sky to your kitchen: the water cycle, what it picks up along the way, how a treatment plant cleans it, and what can still end up in your glass.

  1. 1The Water Cycle
  2. 2What Gets In
  3. 3The Treatment Plant
  4. 4Through the Pipes
  5. 5The Last 100 Feet
  6. 6What's Left in Your Glass
  7. 7What You Can Do
• Forever ChemicalsHow PFAS got into almost everyone's blood

  From a 1938 lab accident to the blood of nearly every American: why PFAS are so hard to destroy, how they spread, what they do to us, where the rules stand, and what you can do.

  1. 1An Accidental Miracle
  2. 2The Forever Bond
  3. 3Into Everyone's Blood
  4. 4The Health Question
  5. 5The Rules, Right Now
  6. 6What You Can Do
  7. 7Can We Destroy Them?

• Guides and lessons

  Guides answer one practical question each. Lessons tell a bigger story, chapter by chapter.

• Something to try

  Run a treatment plant, check a row of your water report, work a month of permit results. Then take the quiz.

• Every source listed

  Facts are checked against primary sources: the federal rules themselves, EPA, USGS, CDC, the National Academies, the courts.