Sheila Holt-Orsted smiles as she remembers a simple pleasure of growing up in the Tennessee countryside: the ice-cold water that flowed from the faucets of her family farm. “Every day I would fill up a jug,” she says. “It had this wonderful, slightly sweet taste. I thought it was good for me.”
Decades later, she learned her habit was far from healthy. Located 500 ft. from a neighboring landfill, the Holts’ water well was contaminated with trichloroethylene (TCE), an industrial solvent that can cause liver and kidney damage and is suspected of causing cancer.