Schlichtmann learned around this time that the problem of TCE in drinking water was not limited to Woburn and Gray, Maine. In a document published by the U.S. Public Health Service, he read that “between 9 and 34 percent of the water supply sources in the United States may be contaminated with trichloroethylene.” Even more astounding, the same document estimated that if a population of ten million people were to breathe air containing one part per million of TCE over a lifetime, as many as 93,000 would be “at risk of developing cancer.” Schlichtmann vowed never again to take a drink of regular tap water.

Jonathan Harr, A Civil Action, loc. 1099