Trusting the Tap? A Study of Concerns about Drinking Water Safety in a Contamination Hotspot

• In Event: 50620 - Section on Environmental Sociology Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 19: Water Safety and Conservation

Abstract

Drinking water contamination has been a public health concern in Wilmington, North Carolina, a hotspot of forever chemicals or perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), since 2017. Despite improvements in water quality, trust in municipal tap water remains fractured, revealing a deeper failure in the dissemination of environmental knowledge. In this study, we apply Foucauldian theory to examine how Wilmington’s largest university, the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW), has shaped public understanding of water safety, as both a site of knowledge production and an enclosure. A 2023 survey of UNCW students (n=283) finds that information regarding water contamination is concentrated among natural science students, while those in other disciplines remain largely uninformed. Moreover, greater awareness does not lead to trust. The differences in cognizance of the recent health concerns within the drinking water across disciplines are emblematic of an institutional failure to elicit accurate risk perceptions of the area. A misuse of biopolitics develops students who are most knowledgeable about water issues are significantly more likely to reject tap water, demonstrating that UNCW’s knowledge and power are misaligned with present realities. The failure to update and distribute accurate information allows local water history to function as a Foucauldian disciplinary mechanism, sustaining fear-based responses, consequentially preventing collective trust in public infrastructure which then encourages unsustainable practices like bottled water consumption. These findings reveal that UNCW is not merely an institution of education but a site where environmental anxieties are produced and maintained. Currently, the institution perpetuates a fragmented dissemination of environmental knowledge that leaves segments of the student body uninformed while reinforcing distrust in public water systems. By failing to educate the student body equitably and allowing outdated risk perception to persist, the university weaponizes biopolitics against its own population, reinforcing unsustainable behavior and institutional apprehension rather than fostering informed environmental engagement.

Authors

• Brock Ternes, University of North Carolina-Wilmington

• Max Morrison, University of North Carolina-Wilmington