History Main / WaterSourceTampering

* In ''Videogame/GrimDawn'', an early quest has the player helping the survivor settlement at Devil's Crossing by fixing their water pump. Once it is repaired, the water that comes out is clearly poisoned and deadly to drink. This is caused by a species of locals name-men named the Slith, who secrete a poison from their bodies into the water that renders it undrinkable by humans. Once the player descends into their lair and kills the Slith's matriarch, the water clears up.

* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolixVThePhantomPain'': The first story mission in Chapter 2 has Venom Snake shutting down an oil refinery that is leaking into a River in Africa, poisoning the local villagers. [[spoiler:It turns out that this was done by XOF to try and dispose of an unneeded strain of vocal-chord parasite, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero which begins infecting the villagers]]]].

* Enclave President John Henry Eden in ''VideoGame/Fallout3'' attempts to convince the player to insert a container of novel Forced Evolutionary Virus into the water supply at Project Purity in an effort to achieve the Enclave's goal of killing everyone in the Capital Wasteland with the slightest degree of mutation. He says that the player character, having been born in a vault, is probably immune to the disease. [[spoiler:He's wrong.]]

* "[[Music/SuperGhostbusters Ghosttbusters]]" by [[WebVideo/{{Vinesauce}} Vargskelethor (AKA Vinesauce Joel)]] has the protagonist poison the water supply, killing everybody.

* ''ComicBook/ArneAnka'': One strip, which revolved around Arne finding out he's got chlamydia, ends with him threatening to urinate in Stockholms water supply his friend, Krille, discovers his diagnosis and laughs at him for it.

* An inverted version is mentioned in ''Film/Contagion2011''. The US government wants to know if they can distribute the cure this way, but is told that it would only [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome dilute it beyond practical effectiveness]].

* In ''Film/ErinBrockovich'', PG&E tries to cover up the fact that they were poisoning the groundwater of the town Hinkley, California with hexavalent chromium, which resulted in most of the town suffering from illness and cancer.

* ''Film/Zone39'': Central Union is in the process of misappropriating water from working class towns to supply other areas with clean water.

* The superhero-themed gamebook, ''Literature/AppointmentWithFEAR'', have one encounter where you'll need to stop a madman who calls himself "The Poisoner" from contaminating the Titan City water reservoir.

** In #38, the [[SuicideMission Andalite commandos]] plan to release [[spoiler:a SyntheticPlague]] into the Yeerk Pool, which has a possibility of also killing humans.

* In the first volume of the ''Literature/BooksOfTheRaksura'', in order to deal with a Fell occupation, the Indigo Cloud Raksura end up dumping a substance that kills Fell, makes Raksura very ill, and has no affect on most other groundlings into the court's water supply.
* Mentioned in ''Literature/ADanceWithDragons'', the fifth book of ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'': Tyrion opines that Daenerys Targaryen is a fool for not poisoning every well within a 20 mile radius of her city of Meereen the moment she learned an enemy army was coming to lay siege. Tyrion notes that if she'd done so, the enemy's only water supply would have been a noxious nearby river that drinking from would have invited an outbreak of all manner of waterborne diseases within the ranks.

* ''Tribesmen of Literature/{{Gor}}'' FantasyCounterpartCulture to arabs/desert dwellers; an outside party causes unrest by masquerading as one of two opposing tribes and attacking the others' oases. At one point they destroy a well, which tells Tarl's best friend of the book that they aren't really tribesmen because no tribesman, no matter how evil, would destroy a well.

* ''Series/TheGoodies'': In "Snooze", Graham invents a bedtime drink that works so well it puts the entire country to sleep. So he invents an antidote that speeds up the metabolism, and plans to distribute it by going around with 24,000 gallons of concentrated antidote and putting a tablespoon in each river or reservoir. Unfortunately the Goodies accidentally knock an entire drum-load in at once, and hilarity ensues as everyone starts running about at a rapid rate that increases whenever they take a drink.

* ''Series/ThePacific'': In Ep 6, ''Peleliu Airfield'', the thirsty [[SemperFi U.S Marines]] on the hot island of Peleliu get excited over news on someone finally finding water. As they happily collect much-need drinking water, another pair of Marines carefully checking the well fishes out the rotting carcass of a goat from the well, confirming that the [[UsefulNotes/KatanasOfTheRisingSun Imperial Japanese]] had indeed poisoned it to deny the invaders.

* The ''TabletopGame/{{Illuminati}}'' card-game and ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}'' module has the "Fiendish Flouridators" as one of its many conspiracies.

* ''Theatre/HolyMusicalBatman'' uses this, with a small parody of its use in Batman comics. When Sweet Tooth announces his plan to poison the water supply, several people comment about the how it's worse than the last couple times a supervillain poisoned Gotham's water supply.

* ''VideoGame/AstalonTearsOfTheEarth'': Algus, Arias and Kyuli venture to the Tower of Serpents in hopes of saving their village after its water supply is poisoned.

* A side quest in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' has someone suspect that a farmer's paddyfield is tainted with something due to the smell. You find out that a plant monster contaminated the water source, which was seeping into the fields and also likely contaminated the food being grown.
* [[AllLovingHero Micaiah]] of ''VideoGame/FireEmblemRadiantDawn'' rejects this as a tactic to take out a well defended enemy base when it's suggested. Rather than point out the questionable ethics involved, she explains that people would ''see'' it as a questionable act, and start to question their motives, maybe turn against them.

* ''WesternAnimation/DrawnTogether'': Spanky distracts Princess Clara from interfering with his gay marriage to Xandir (for his health insurance) by telling her there's a Jew outside poisoning a well. Sure enough, Clara finds a rabbi outside, but turns out he's just putting in water purification tablets.

** In "GI-(Annoyed Grunt)", where Homer joins the Army Reserve, Homer is put in charge of a squad composed of the lowliest soldiers, and after Homer escapes the base where the war-game is held, [[ColonelKilgore the Colonel]] leads his battalion into nearby Springfield to hunt him down. Despite being told that his actions to capture one man wastes money and makes the Army look bad, [[HonorBeforeReason the colonel insists on continuing his hunt]]. The occupation of Springfield only ends when Marge convinces everyone to pour alcohol into the reservoir, and once the battalion gets drunk and passes out, several gun wielding residents surround the Colonel when he wakes up and Marge negotiates a truce.

* In Flint, Michigan, the water supply was changed from the Great Lake to the Flint River, notorious for filth. This caused many people to suffer from lead poisoning due to the increased acidity of the water corroding the town's lead pipes, and caused national outrage at Governor Rick Snyder.

* Attempted in the city of The Dalles, Oregon, in 1984. Members of the Rajneeshee cult planned to poison the water supply to make the residents sick so they could rig a city election and get their own cult members elected. The good news is that in the dry run, which involved poisoning salad bar food; they were implicated, compelled to withdraw their candidate, and ultimately tried and convicted for the poisoning & related crimes. The bad news is that about 750 people suffered through salmonella infection.

* [[Recap/TheShadowRadioS01E19 One episode]] of ''Radio/TheShadow'' had an unseen villain killing people by poison and falsely claiming to be The Shadow. It is quickly figured out that the murderer is killing by putting poison into buildings water supplies. The real Shadow tracks the villain down and prevents him from dumping the poison into a water tower.

** The Soviets' poisoning of every water source they come across ends up biting them in the butt later - [[spoiler:a Soviet helicopter crew unknowingly drinks from a pond the tank crew had poured cyanide into earlier and all die — before they can radio assistance for the stranded tank.]]

* ''Film/{{Signs}}'': Bo, the little girl, would start glasses of water then find something wrong with them (such as "It has [her brother's] amoebas in it!") and stop drinking them, leaving them scattered all over the house, half-full. [[spoiler: It turned out leaving the glasses all over was Bo being precognitive but unwilling or unable to explain it. Water was harmful to the hostile aliens, one of which had gotten into the house, and when they needed to be able to hurt it, it found itself standing in a room surrounded by partially full water glasses.]]

* In ''Literature/ThisOtherWorld'', Bar-temah puts the drugs that cause [[{{telepathy}} Ha-Ran]] in the water supply in an attempt to stave off war with Makka by forcing people to empathize with each other. [[spoiler:It backfires horribly - the tampering is discovered, Makka is blamed, and war breaks out.]]

* ''VideoGame/Uncharted3'': The secret of King Solomon's ifrit is eventually revealed to be a [[spoiler: potent hallucinogen, hidden in the brass bottle, which he secretly introduced into the water supply of Ubar. After having primed the citizens of Ubar to believe he was going to unleash an ifrit upon them, and seeing as the city is in the middle of the desert and nobody had any choice but to drink the tainted water, they all had a catastrophic mass hallucination and set the city on fire themselves.]]

** The Soviets' poisoning of every water source they come across ends up biting them in the butt later, as a Soviet helicopter crew unknowingly drinks from a pond the tank crew had poured cyanide into earlier and all die — before they can radio assistance for the stranded tank.

* In ''Manga/BirdyTheMighty'', this was Seichiro Hikawa's plan for the people of Tokyo, to turn them into "retro soldiers" by tainting the city's water supply with serum. See here, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxFqMG_OSNs starting at 4:27]].

* Early on in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'', Kefka does this to the village of Doma in one of the definitive crossings of the MoralEventHorizon in console gaming.

* ''Series/BlakesSeven'': In the pilot, the title character is told to not drink for three days because the Terran Administration is putting emotional suppressants in the water to [[GovernmentDrugEnforcement keep the population docile]] (later, when Blake leaves the DomedCity, he's encouraged to drink some CoolClearWater, but doesn't like the taste). In the final season, the Federation invents a drug that stops the production of adrenaline, refining it to such an extent that it can be introduced into the water or air, enabling the easy conquest of entire planets.

* ''Series/GetSmart''. In "Is This Trip Necessary?", a [[MadDoctor Mad Pharmacist]] plans to put an enormous hallucinogen pill in the water supply, but is stopped by our heroes. When Max and 99 realise that, as a result, everyone will have a normal boring day tomorrow, they wonder if they did the right thing.
* ''Series/TheGoodies''. In "Snooze", Graham invents a bedtime drink that works so well it puts the entire country to sleep. So he invents an antidote that speeds up the metabolism, and plans to distribute it by going around with 24,000 gallons of concentrated antidote and putting a tablespoon in each river or reservoir. Unfortunately the Goodies accidentally knock an entire drum-load in at once, and HilarityEnsues as everyone starts running about at a rapid rate that increases whenever they take a drink.
* ''Series/{{Highlander}}: The Series'': In the multi-parter about the HorsemenOfTheApocalypse, the BigBad planned to contaminate water supplies with a bioweapon, ForTheEvulz.

* ''Series/{{Merlin|2008}}'': Nimueh conjured up an Afanc--a creature conjured using the Magic of the Elements of Earth and Water--magically transporting it inside an egg to the water supply of Camelot, where it hatched and caused a plague that killed dozens of citizens of Camelot, turning them pale with blue veins in the process.

** Played with in an episode where Data — who has amnesia and doesn't know about his own history or Starfleet — is accused of poisoning a well in the village he's living in, but he's really trying to cure them of radiation poisoning by putting the cure in the drinking water (resorting to subterfuge because the villagers don't trust him enough to take his cure if he offered it openly).
** Another episode has the VillainOfTheWeek do this as part of a PoisonAndCureGambit — which itself is a cover [[XanatosGambit for his real goal to get his hands on Data]], so he can add a Soong-type android to his collection of rare items.

* ''Series/TheXFiles'': In "Anasazi", the shadowy organization puts LSD into Mulder's water supply, causing erratic behavior that discredits both him and the case he is currently following. And since it wasn't just Mulder's water supply, but his entire apartment building's, it also caused at least one murder there.

* ''WesternAnimation/KirikouAndTheSorceress'': Evil sorceress Karaba made sure the African village's main water source went dry. [[Brainybaby Kirikou]] decides to look it up closely and finds out a creature has been drinking it all for a while (the creature's belly has grown gigantic from all the water). He then borrows a red iron to pop it like a balloon, restoring the village's water supply, but at the cost of himself nearly drowning.

* Attempted in a city in Oregon where a cult planned to poison a water supply to make the residents sick so they could rig an election and get their own cult members elected. The good news is that in the dry run, which involved poisoning salad bar food, they were ultimately tried and convicted and lost the election. The bad news, all the restaurants lost business.

* And yes, [[ConspiracyTheorist Conspiracy Theorists]] have accused governments of pulling this since the beginning of government. We're not going to list them all, because if we did, we'd be here until the Whigs controlled Congress again.

* In ''FanFic/ACureForLove'' [[spoiler:[[AGodAmI Kira]]]]'s ultimate scheme is to release a SterilityPlague into the water supply so that he may gain absolute control over the human race.

* In the past of ''FanFic/TouhouIbunshu'', [[spoiler:Yukari]] killed Yuyuko's parents by tossing a dead fairy in the waterhole.

* The Literature/{{Discworld}} novel ''Literature/{{Jingo}}'' reveals that 71-Hour Ahmed once visited a man who had poisoned the only well for twenty miles worth of desert, killing five men, seven women, thirteen children, and thirty-one camels (some of which were very valuable) in the process. [[spoiler:Once he had solid evidence and witness testimony, Ahmed immediately executed the mass-murderer one hour before the customary three days of SacredHospitality was up. This is the source of his much feared nickname, although Ahmed observes that the other man would certainly have killed ''him'' once the hospitality rule had expired so he was just being proactive by doing it first]].