well , ratzlaff thought to himself and wanted to say aloud except that he very much treasured his job , let 's start with the fact that our company built a pesticide plant in podunk , mississippi , because the land and labor were dirt cheap , then we spent the next thirty years dumping chemicals and waste into the ground and into the rivers , quite illegally of course , and we contaminated the drinking water until it tasted like spoiled milk , which , as bad as it was , was n't the worst part , because then people started dying of cancer and leukemia .