Some people living near coal-fired power plants such as this one in Belews Creek, N.C., have been relying on bottled water for over two years since high levels of certain chemicals were found in their well water.
Credit: Jim Tuttle/News21

PHOENIX – In Ringwood, New Jersey, Ford Motor Co. dumped more than 35,000 tons of toxic paint sludge onto lands occupied for centuries by the Turtle Clan of the Ramapough Lenape tribe, poisoning groundwater with arsenic, lead and other harmful chemicals.

Today, more than 43 years after the dumping ended, those toxins are still in the groundwater and threaten a reservoir providing drinking water to millions of residents of New Jersey.

In Picher, Oklahoma, decades of lead and zinc mining left residents with an aquifer contaminated with lead and heavy metals. The flow of polluted mine water into streams, lakes and a large groundwater aquifer still poses a threat to drinking water for nearby communities nearly 60 years after mining stopped.

In North Carolina, the state has told residents […]