It was like Rachel Carson's description of "Silent Spring:" nature just went quiet at Elizabeth Hilborn's North Carolina farm. The biggest difference was the lack of bees. Hilborn investigated, using her other skills: she's a veterinarian who has investigated many outbreaks of disease.
The culprit turned out to be a chemical one, aided by some twists in geology, topography, and hydrology. Dr. Hilborn tells the full story in her book Restoring Eden: Unearthing the Agribusiness Secret That Poisoned My Farming Community.
We bring the author in for a discussion of environmental damage, and how a landscape can recover from it.