Documentary overview

About Poisoned Waters (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

More than three decades after the Clean Water Act was supposed to make America’s waters clean enough for swimming and fishing, two iconic waterways — the great coastal estuaries of Puget Sound and the Chesapeake Bay — remained in perilous condition. (Aired 2009) In this 2009 documentary, FRONTLINE correspondent Hedrick Smith examines why it’s so hard to keep our waters clean. Through interviews with scientists, environmental activists, corporate executives and average citizens impacted by the burgeoning pollution problem, Smith reveals that a growing environmental threat came not from the giant industrial polluters of old, but from chemicals in consumers' face creams, deodorants, prescription medicines and household cleaners that found their way into sewers, storm drains and eventually into America's waterways and drinking water. FRONTLINE is produced at GBH in Boston and is broadcast nationwide on PBS. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional funding is provided by the Abrams Foundation; the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; Park Foundation; and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund with major support

Poisoned Waters (full documentary) | FRONTLINE is presented by FRONTLINE PBS | Official. Its listed runtime is 112 minutes. The source link and publisher attribution are provided with the embedded film.

As a society documentary, Poisoned Waters (full documentary) | FRONTLINE uses poisoned, waters, frontline as its central frame. Social documentaries work best as invitations to examine systems through lived experience. Distinguish individual testimony from wider claims, and consider which institutions, incentives and inequalities shape the choices shown.

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  1. What evidence, testimony or observation does the film use to explain poisoned, waters, frontline?
  2. Which people, institutions or historical conditions most influence the story told in Poisoned Waters (full documentary) | FRONTLINE?
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Film information

Documentary details and original source

Title
Poisoned Waters (full documentary) | FRONTLINE
Category
Society
Runtime
112 minutes
Language
English

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