Question: Don't drink the water! The movie A Civil Action (Touchstone Pictures, 1998) tells the story of a major legal battle that took place in the small town of Woburn, Massachusetts. A town well that supplied water to eastern Woburn residents was contaminated by industrial chemicals. During the period that residents drank water from this well, 16 of the 414 babies born had birth defects. On the west side of Woburn, 3 of the 228 babies born during the same time period had birth defects.