by Kerry Trueman

Michigan resident Barbara Walter, who draws her water from a well near a landfill, recently found a business card from a health department worker stuck in her front door with this message on the back:

“We sampled your water and you need to stop drinking it. Please call me in the morning between 8:30 and 10:30.”

Walter’s water was so contaminated by hazardous solvents that the state now provides her family with bottled water for drinking, cooking and bathing. Michigan had allocated some $760 million in bond funds to clean up the toxic leftovers of industry, but with thousands of severely polluted sites, the money’s evaporated, unlike the poisons contaminating the state’s soil and water. Looks like it’s taps for Barbara Walter’s tap water.