Downstream

A Swedish scientist who studied both chemistry and physics, Arrhenius became a founding father of a new field: physical chemistry.

A chemist and leading environmental consultant, Berkowitz tackled everything from preventing water pollution to the best ways to treat industrial wastes.

‘Silent Spring,’ written by Carson and published in 1962, helped ignite the modern environmentalist movement.

The theory of atomism, proposed by Dalton in the early 19th century and derived from meteorological studies, is the foundation for our modern concept of the atom.

In the 1940s the husband-and-wife team of Clifford and Kathryn Hach launched the Hach Chemical Company, which became a leading producer of water-testing reagents and instruments.

Considered the father of modern chemistry, Lavoisier promoted the Chemical Revolution, naming oxygen and helping systematize chemical nomenclature.

Perhaps best known for inventing the Othmer still and coediting the ‘Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology,’ Othmer was also an educator, an entrepreneur, and a philanthropist.

One of the 18th century’s most preeminent experimental scientists, Priestley is best remembered for discovering oxygen. He was also a conspicuous figure in the revolutionary politics of his day.

A pioneer in water sanitation and the first women to be admitted into MIT, Richards is one of the founders of home economics and spearheaded one of the first school lunch programs in the U.S.

A centuries-old sailor’s hack enters the ecologist’s toolkit.

In showing that cholera spreads through tainted water, an English doctor helped lay epidemiology’s foundations.

How ancient (and not so ancient) cultures thought about water purity and contamination.

The groundbreaking ecologist showed that the biological diversity within a stream can be used to diagnose its health.

Is recycled wastewater too much to swallow?

The fight for Brooklyn’s coolest Superfund site.

Rachel Carson’s genius lay in pulling together data from many areas and synthesizing it to create the first coherent account of the effects persistent chemicals had on the environment.

With dynamite and cannons, Robert St. George Dyrenforth hoped to end drought in the late 19th century. This vision of weather and climate control seized the imagination of scientists and businessmen.

How a radio pioneer transformed life at sea.

A novel swimsuit reveals that faster isn’t necessarily better.

When the EPA needed a way to identify and measure pollutants, Robert Finnigan, an ex–Cold War engineer, offered his computerized mass spectrometer for the job.

Gutta percha, a natural plastic found in tree sap, allowed the expansion of the 19th century’s global communications network.

The way the city tackled its water pollution problems has made it an unexpected pioneer.  

The unnatural history of a carbonated drink.

The blaze that sparked the modern environmental movement . . . or did it?

Harnessing nature to deliver us from drought.

It’s complicated.

Take a trip down Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal with cartographer and citizen scientist Eymund Diegel.

Eleanor Roosevelt thanks a chemical engineering firm in Philadelphia for manufacturing water for the king and queen of England on their visit to America.