Third Thursday at CEIE | FILM

Poisoned Waters

A PBS Frontline Documentary

New toxins from everyday life found in our drinking water are posing threats to fish, wildlife and human health. Poisoned Waters, a PBS Frontline documentary by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Hedrick Smith, will be shown on Thursday, Aug 16, 7pm at the Center for Environmental Innovation and Education (CEIE) on Denning's Point.

Through interviews with scientists, environmental activists, corporate executives and average citizens impacted by the burgeoning pollution problem, Hedrick Smith reveals startling new evidence that today's growing environmental threat comes not from the giant industrial polluters of old, but from chemicals in consumers' face creams, deodorants, prescription medicines and household cleaners that find their way into sewers, storm drains, and eventually into America's waterways and drinking water.

"We thought all the way along that [Puget Sound] was like a toilet: What you put in, you flush out," says Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire, who notes that about 150,000 pounds of untreated toxins find their way into Puget Sound each day. "We [now] know that's not true. It's like a bathtub: What you put in stays there."

More than three decades after the Clean Water Act, iconic American waterways like the Chesapeake Bay and Puget Sound are in perilous condition and facing new sources of contamination.