This is my house, I have to defend it! - Kevin McCallister

In Chapter 3 I read about the Boonton Reservoir and how it has become polluted by many things, including the very things meant to purify it. The chapter hit me a little harder than most because I live in Boonton and so I have driven past this huge reservoir for 20 years, never realizing its history or how the water was and is contaminated by a variety of chemicals and unhealthy bacteria. I remember my mom mentioning how the reservoir had dried up when she was really little, and she had walked in parts of it. She had told me that Old Boonton was once

located down there, so you could see remnants of it when the drought hit. I always thought that was so cool, and wished I could have seen it myself.

When the author talked about the giant ball that was placed in the reservoir to regulate the flow of water, I wondered if my great grandmother would have seen this event, and remembered the tragedy that occurred because of it. Unfortunately I never had the opportunity to meet her since she passed away before I was born, but if she were still alive today, I definitely would have asked her since she had lived in Boonton since the early 1900s.

I found it crazy that we used a method to sanitize our water that was first used for cattle. It is true, the chlorinating of the water did prevent diseases and horrible illnesses like typhoid, but it created new problems instead. This chlorinating of the water helped to disinfect the water, and avoided spending tons of money on a new filtration system since they just killed anything in the water. But, as the water became more contaminated from an increased amount of suspended sewage, they responded by adding even more chlorine which caused "chemical reactions with organic loads in the water" (60). These chemical reactions created new compounds

called disinfection byproducts (DBPs) which were found to be carcinogenic - scary stuff!

The problems with our water is not over, with new contaminants continually popping up. It is just important to stay on

top of monitoring our water for new, possibly dangerous, contaminants because new threats to the water are introduced all the time. My family always looks at our water quality statement to see what is in our water. We always find it strange though that our water always has the most amount of a contaminant possible without it being "dangerous." Interesting...