While there seems to be some sort of stigma regarding different types of “educational†television content, I have a feeling that the presentation of Frontline’s Poisoned Waters will be enough to keep viewers on the edge of their seats throughout the entirety of the show’s runtime. The release details how exactly the work that was done in the years immediately preceding and following the Clean Water Act have not really provided the sense of security that inhabitants of the United States believed that further environmental legislation would provide. Furthermore, the water quality in the United States has actually decreased (not increased) over the course of the years that follows the passing of the aforementioned Clean Water Act.
In fact, in the two different sources of water that they provide here in Poisoned Waters – the Chesapeake Bay and Puget Sound – the water quality is decidedly poor. It may be the case that Lake Erie is not currently catching on fire on a regular basis, but one has to consider the differential in water quality between the United States and other “developed†countries. The increased pace of expansion, whether it be in regards to agriculture, industrial development, or increased amounts of residential building projects, have created a number of unintended consequences that pretty much have taken the citizenry by surprise.
The number of different viewpoints that are tapped during Poisoned Waters is great for those that wish to have some semblance of the number of opinions on the topic. The show stretches out over the course of two hours, going into much more in the way of detail than any other show could conceivably hope to achieve. For those that saw the original airing of Poisoned Water, this DVD provides an ease in turning other individuals onto the intricacies of this problem, and is integral for providing information that would otherwise be lost in the corners of reports and other pieces of academia.
Rating: 8.4/10
Poisoned Waters (DVD) / 2009 PBS / 120 Minutes / http://www.pbs.org