Park Slope’s Old First Reformed Church and Community Bookstore and local advocacy group Park Slope Neighbors are joining forces to present a reading and community forum featuring award-winning investigative journalist — and Park Slope resident — Elizabeth Royte.
Royte will read from her acclaimed new book “Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It” at the Old First Reformed Church, Seventh Avenue and Carroll Street, September 25 at 7 p.m. Admission is free.
“Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It” is an illuminating albeit distressing look at the people, machines, economies, and cultural trends that have made bottled water a $60-billion-a-year phenomenon even as it threatens local control of a natural resource and litters the landscape with plastic waste.
Royte will be joined by Jay Simpson, staff attorney at the environmental advocacy group Riverkeeper. Mr. Simpson, who will speak about his work as a member of Riverkeeper’s Watershed Team, investigates and prosecutes Clean Water Act violations, fights sprawl in the Hudson River watershed, and works with community groups to protect our public drinking-water supply.
Royte will read selections from “Bottlemania,” and will talk about the bottled-water backlash, what’s right and wrong with the nation’s tap water, and will explain why even New Yorkers with well-water should be concerned about whose hand controls the faucet. She and Simpson will also take questions from the audience.
The Community Bookstore, 143 Seventh Avenue, will have copies of “Bottlemania” available for purchase, and Royte will be signing copies of her book at the end of the evening.
For more, visit www.oldfirstbrooklyn.org, www.communitybookstore.net, or www.parkslopeneighbors.org.
