ERIN BROCKOVICH: PROTECTING THE ENVIRONMENT

Erin Brockovich

Erin Brockovich (born June 22, 1960) is an American legal clerk and environmental activist, who, despite her lack of formal education in the law, was instrumental in building a case against the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) of California in 1993. Her successful lawsuit was the subject of a 2000 film, Erin Brockovich, which starred Julia Roberts. Since then, Brockovich has become a media personality as well, hosting the TV series Challenge America with Erin Brockovich on ABC and Final Justice on Zone Reality. She is the president of Brockovich Research & Consulting. She also works as a consultant for Girardi & Keese, the New York law firm of Weitz & Luxenberg, which has a focus on personal injury claims for asbestos exposure, and Shine Lawyers in Australia.

She was born Erin Pattee in Lawrence, Kansas, the daughter of Betty Jo, a journalist, and Frank Pattee (1924–2011), an industrial engineer and football player. She worked as a management trainee for Kmart in 1981 but quit after a few months and entered a beauty pageant. She won Miss Pacific Coast in 1981 and left the beauty pageant after the win. She has lived in California since 1982.

More information: Erin Brockovich

The case alleged contamination of drinking water with hexavalent chromium, also written as Chromium VI, Cr-VI or Cr-6, in the southern California town of Hinkley. At the center of the case was a facility, the Hinkley compressor station, built in 1952 as a part of a natural-gas pipeline connecting to the San Francisco Bay Area. Between 1952 and 1966, PG&E used hexavalent chromium in a cooling tower system to fight corrosion. The wastewater was discharged to unlined ponds at the site, and some percolated into the groundwater, affecting an area near the plant approximately 3.2 by 1.6 km. The Regional Water Quality Control Board (RWQCB) put the PG&E site under its regulations in 1968.

Erin Brockovich

The case was settled in 1996 for US$333 million, the largest settlement ever paid in a direct-action lawsuit in U.S. history. Masry & Vititoe, the law firm for which Brockovich was a legal clerk, received $133.6 million of that settlement, and Brockovich herself was given a bonus of $2.5 million.

A study released in 2010 by the California Cancer Registry showed that cancer rates in Hinkley remained unremarkable from 1988 to 2008. An epidemiologist involved in the study said that the 196 cases of cancer reported during the most recent survey of 1996 through 2008 were fewer than what he would expect based on demographics and the regional rate of cancer. However, a June 2013 Mother Jones magazine article featured an extensive critique from the Center for Public Integrity of the author's work on the later epidemiological studies.

As of 2006, average Cr-6 levels in Hinkley were recorded as 1.19 ppb with a peak of 3.09 ppb. For comparison, the PG&E Topock Compressor Station on the California-Arizona border averaged 7.8 ppb with peaks of 31.8 ppb based on a PG&E Background Study.

 

More information: Chasing the Frog

 If you believe you're right... 

stand up and fight for your place in the sun. 

If you believe you can do it, hang in for the whole 15 rounds 

because even if you don't win, 

you will have earned the respect of everyone in the fight, 

including yourself, and in that sense you will have prevailed.
 

Erin Brockovich