| In Our Water | |
|---|---|
 Film poster | |
| Directed by | Meg Switzgable |
| Produced by | Meg Switzgable |
| Starring |
|
| Cinematography | |
| Edited by | Mona Davis |
Production company | Foresight Films |
| Distributed by | New Day Films |
Release date |
|
Running time | 60 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
In Our Water is a 1982 American documentary film directed by Meg Switzgable, about a family in South Brunswick, New Jersey, who discover their drinking water is contaminated by a nearby landfill.
The film focuses on the Frank Kaler family of South Brunswick, New Jersey. Kaler is a housepainter and the family gets their water from their own well, as do their neighbors. The Kalers realize that their water is being contaminated from a nearby landfill and seek to get government to acknowledge and fix the problem. Their attempts to contact local and then the state Department of Environmental Protection are rebuffed. Mr. Kaler eventually goes to Washington DC to testify at Congressional hearings. The film follows the five-year radicalization of Kaler as he realizes what is happening to groundwater and why.
In a positive review for The Nation , Greg Mitchell wrote "In Our Water is instructive, and it is depressing, but it is also inspiring". [1] Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote: "Miss Switzgable's film, in addition to providing a swift and distressing lesson about environmental pollution, ably chronicles the ways in which Mr. Kaler's crusade have strengthened his resolve." [2]
It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. [3] After airing on PBS' Frontline , it was nominated for an Emmy Award. [4]
Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are highly carcinogenic chemical compounds, formerly used in industrial and consumer products, whose production was banned in the United States by the Toxic Substances Control Act in 1979 and internationally by the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants in 2001. They are organic chlorine compounds with the formula C12H10−xClx; they were once widely used in the manufacture of carbonless copy paper, as heat transfer fluids, and as dielectric and coolant fluids for electrical equipment.
Susan Abigail Sarandon is an American actress. She is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award, in addition to nominations for a Daytime Emmy Award, six Primetime Emmy Awards, and nine Golden Globe Awards. In 2002, she was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Toxic waste is any unwanted material in all forms that can cause harm. Mostly generated by industry, consumer products like televisions, computers, and phones contain toxic chemicals that can pollute the air and contaminate soil and water. Disposing of such waste is a major public health issue.
Environmental health is the branch of public health concerned with all aspects of the natural and built environment affecting human health. In order to effectively control factors that may affect health, the requirements that must be met in order to create a healthy environment must be determined. The major sub-disciplines of environmental health are environmental science, toxicology, environmental epidemiology, and environmental and occupational medicine.
New Jersey Meadowlands, also known as the Hackensack Meadowlands after the primary river flowing through it, is a general name for a large ecosystem of wetlands in northeastern New Jersey in the United States, a few miles to the west of New York City. During the 20th century, much of the Meadowlands area was urbanized, and it became known for being the site of large landfills and decades of environmental abuse. A variety of projects are underway to restore and conserve the remaining ecological resources in the Meadowlands.
The Cape Fear River is a 191.08-mile-long blackwater river in east-central North Carolina. It flows into the Atlantic Ocean near Cape Fear, from which it takes its name. The river is formed at the confluence of the Haw River and the Deep River in the town of Moncure, North Carolina. Its river basin is the largest in the state: 9,149 sq mi.
Tybouts Corner is an unincorporated populated place in New Castle County, Delaware, United States.
Janet R. Maslin is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for The New York Times. She served as a Times film critic from 1977 to 1999 and as a book critic from 2000 to 2015. In 2000, Maslin helped found the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, New York. She is president of its board of directors.
Warren County PCB Landfill was a PCB landfill located in Warren County, North Carolina, near the community of Afton south of Warrenton. The landfill was created in 1982 by the State of North Carolina as a place to dump contaminated soil as result of an illegal PCB dumping incident. The site, which is about 150 acres (0.61 km2), was extremely controversial and led to years of lawsuits. Warren County was one of the first cases of environmental justice in the United States and set a legal precedent for other environmental justice cases. The site was approximately three miles south of Warrenton. The State of North Carolina owned about 19 acres (77,000 m2) of the tract where the landfill was located, and Warren County owned the surrounding acreage around the borders.
A landfill liner, or composite liner, is intended to be a low permeable barrier, which is laid down under engineered landfill sites. Until it deteriorates, the liner retards migration of leachate, and its toxic constituents, into underlying aquifers or nearby rivers, causing potentially irreversible contamination of the local waterway and its sediments.
The Kin-Buc Landfill is a 220-acre (0.89 km2) Superfund site located in Edison, New Jersey where 70 million US gallons (260,000 m3) of liquid toxic waste and 1 million tons of solid waste were dumped. It was active from the late 1940s to 1976. It was ordered closed in 1977. Cleanup operations have been underway to address environmental issues with contamination from 1980s through to 2000s. This site was one of the largest superfund sites in New Jersey having taken in around 90 million US gallons (340,000 m3). The site is heavily contaminated with PCBs, which leaked into Edmonds Creek, a tributary of the Raritan River.
Stefan Forbes is an American screenwriter and film director whose films and social justice work often address issues of race, class, masculinity, violence, and restorative justice.
The Killing Ground is a 1979 American documentary film written by Brit Hume. The film portrays environmental and human health effects of toxic waste dump-sites in Niagara Falls, New York and other locations. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
Traveling Hopefully is a 1982 American short documentary film directed by John G. Avildsen. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short. It focuses on Roger Nash Baldwin, founder of the American Civil Liberties Union. Baldwin tells of how he got interested in civil liberties, and mentions a number of the cases in which the ACLU defended people or entities.
The Lipari Landill is an inactive landfill on a 6-acre (2.4 ha) former gravel pit in Mantua Township, New Jersey. It was used from 1958 to 1971 as a dump site for household and industrial wastes. Toxic organic compounds and heavy metals dumped at the site have percolated into the ground water and leached into lakes and streams in the surrounding area. The site has been identified as the worst toxic dump in the United States and was ranked at the top of the United States Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund eligibility list.
The Ringwood Mines landfill site is a 500-acre former iron mining site located in the borough of Ringwood, New Jersey. Used in the late 1960s and early 1970s by the large Ford Motor Company plant in nearby Mahwah, New Jersey for disposal of waste, it was identified by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for its Superfund priority list in 1984 for cleanup of hazardous wastes. EPA deleted the site from the Superfund list in 1994 but subsequently relisted the site several times due to failed environmental remediation. Portions of the landfill site were repurposed as land used for affordable housing for the Ramapough people in the 1970s, even though the land was contaminated.
One Man's War is a 1982 French documentary film directed by Edgardo Cozarinsky. It is about the occupation of France during World War II and juxtaposes newsreel footage with excerpts from the journals of the German writer and military officer Ernst Jünger, who was stationed in Paris during the war. Niels Arestrup narrates the film.
Price Landfill is a 26-acre site located in Pleasantville, Egg Harbor Township, Atlantic County, New Jersey. Price Landfill is also known as Price Sanitary Landfill, Prices Pit, Price Landfill No.1 and Price Chemical Dump. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) added Price Landfill to the Superfund National Priorities List on September 20, 1983, because of the hazardous chemicals found on the site and in the groundwater. The site was originally owned by Mr. Charles Price and was used to mine sand and gravel, which was shut down in 1968. The site was then turned into a private landfill in 1969 and then a commercial solid waste landfill in 1971. At this point the landfill was used to dispose of liquid waste by companies, specifically Atlantic City Electric Company. The liquid waste consisted of industrial chemicals, oils and greases/sludges, septic tank and sewer wastes, which were disposed on the site for 8 years, ending altogether in 1976, but in the meantime, having contaminated the groundwater, soil, air, and nearby creeks, specifically Absecon Creek. Chemicals dumped on the site are believed to be 1,2-Dichloroethane, arsenic, benzene, chloroform, lead, and vinyl chloride, all of which contaminated the groundwater, soil, air, and nearby creeks. The USEPA originally got involved in 1982 by beginning to correct the damage. Currently the USEPA states that they are continuing to monitor and treat the groundwater and land, and that hazards to humans are controlled.
Fresh Kill is a 1994 British-American experimental film directed by Shu Lea Cheang and written by Jessica Hagedorn. It stars Sarita Choudhury and Erin McMurtry as Shareen Lightfoot and Claire Mayakovsky, two lesbian parents who are drawn into a corporate conspiracy involving the Fresh Kills Landfill. Fresh Kill was an official selection at the 1994 Berlin International Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival and is noted for its influence on hacker subculture, with an article about the film for the now-defunct hacker publication InfoNation containing one of the first uses of the term "hacktivism".
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)