I’m Afraid of That Water: A Collaborative Ethnography of a West Virginia Water Crisis edited by Luke Eric Lassiter, Brian A. Hoey, and Elizabeth Campbell

In January of 2014, more than a quarter million residents in a nine-county region of West Virginia, including the state capitol and largest city, Charleston, found their water supply contaminated by a chemical used to clean coal. Immediately officials warned residents not to use the water for drinking, cooking, bathing or ways that would lead to physical contact with people or pets. Five days later, officials notified residents that, if they flushed their water systems, they could again use their tap water. Rumors spread that the flushing process would release chemicals into the air that would make them sick, so the effects for residents lingered. And many residents were worried that the close relationship between the coal industry and civic officials might have led to a premature resolution to the crisis that could endanger the citizenry. This book is an ethnography of the crisis in that it is a compilation of grass-roots reactions and stories. It is collaborative in that the three ed