Regulating the Nation’s Drinking Water is Imperfect and Hard Work . . .

Tracy Mehan offers a review of the book, “Troubled Water; what’s wrong with what we drink,” authored by best seller, Seth Siegel. Siegel’s book is a sentinel call for an overhaul of the U.S. drinking water system. Siegel raises salient concerns regarding the 80,000 unregulated chemicals in U.S. commerce that go untested and the 53,000 community water systems that often are devoid of proper governance and adequate resources, compounded by a regulatory system captured by special interest focused more on reducing costs than public health protection. And while Mehan acknowledges the slow pace and hard work of regulating a highly fragmented water sector, he also rightly questions whether moving to a Euro-style precautionary principles approach is the appropriate response.

Siegel’s book is a worthy read, as is Mehan’s fair assessment.