McKay Jenkins

“Two outstanding environmental writers team up to tell the excoriating story of catastrophic collusion between the Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] and the chemical industry…[a] jaw-dropping exposé….In this riveting indictment, Vallianatos and Jenkins valiantly divulge the blinding greed and unfathomable stupidity behind the unconscionable lies and travesties—assaults against the very fabric of life. A resounding call for genuine and sustained environmental responsibility.”
–Booklist (starred review)

 

 

 

 “Written with a strong dose of moral urgency, Poison Spring is a tragic and deeply troubling insider’s account of the EPA that will raise the hair on the back of your neck. This is a book for all Americans who need to be aware that an agency set up to regulate chemicals has vilified some of its own employees for carrying out that mission, falsely classified toxic substances as “inert,” undermined the laboratories of scientists producing evidence inconvenient to industry, and relied on faked studies by a rogue, privately run lab—in the paid service of chemical companies themselves—to register and license hundreds of chemicals. A brave book about a chilling chapter in U.S. environmental history.” –Ted Steinberg, author of Down to Earth: Nature’s Role in American History and Gotham Unbound: The Ecological History of Greater

“If you read one book this about about chemical pollution, let it be this powerful and important history. In Poison Spring, authors E.G. Vallianatos and McKay Jenkins document in the most compelling – and chilling – detail our government’s reluctance to protect every day citizens rather than powerful corporations. The book stands both as an indictment and as a deeply eloquent call to action.” –Deborah Blum, author, The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz-Age New York.

“Poison Spring, an insider’s look at a failed federal agency, should alarm every citizen who believes the EPA’s middle name ought to mean something. This is an important, clear-eyed, and carefully documented story of how the EPA, once so full of promise,  is played by the industries it is supposed to regulate and weakened by the allies of those same industries in government.”

–William Souder, author of On a Farther Shore: The Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson, Author of Silent Spring