"ERIN BROCKOVICH"(ANDERSON v PACIFIC GAS & ELECTRIC)Author: Carole D. Bos, J.D. ONLINE AT:http://www.awesomestories.com/movies/erin_brockovich/erin_brockovich_ch1.htmPREFACEMr. Masry's office has done an incredible job.I don't know where he got this stuff, ferreting out information for the past several months that will make your hair stand up on edge. Walter LackJanuary 4, 1994Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) was in trouble. Serious trouble. Four decades after the world's largest utility started dumping 370 million gallons of cancer-causing chemicals into unlined ponds in Hinkley, California, the company's actions had finally been uncovered. Uncovered by Erin Brockovich (a formerly unemployed, single mother of three working in a California law firm) who wanted to know what medical records had to do with a real estate file. What she found out led to the biggest settlement on record for a civil class action lawsuit.CHAPTER 2DEATH AND DESTRUCTION IN THE MOJAVEMany people and domestic animals in the high desert town of Hinkley, California were getting sick. Some had died. Since residents depended on the local groundwater supplyfor all their needs, were the illnesses somehow related to PG&E's Gas Compressor Station located nearby?On December 7, 1987 officials from the company advised the State of California they had detected levels of hexavalent chromium (chrome 6) in a groundwater monitoring well north of the compressor station's waste water ponds. The levels were ten times greater than the maximum amount allowed by law.Known as a cancer-causing chemical since the 1920s, chrome 6 is especially dangerous to lungs. Since many of the Hinkley residents were reporting respiratory problems, a link to chrome 6 contamination seemed possible.After PG&E reported the pollution to the government, company officials started a program to buy every piece of property in the community thought to be affected by the pollution. (That's what medical records had to do with real estate transactions.) It wasn't long before PG&E had 75% of those houses and buildings destroyed. The company reported it was merely responding to vandalism.CHAPTER 3 - MISLEADING STATEMENTSPG&E distributed flyers discussing the company's use of "chromium" to local residents. Nowhere in the flyer was there any mention of the type of chromium PG&E had used. Infact, one could make a strong case that carefully selected words were deliberately misleading:Chromium occurs in two forms. The form that is present in groundwater can cause health effects in high doses. The cleanup program, however, will result in chromium levels that meet the very conservative drinking water standards set by the EPA. In addition, the form of chromium that will be left on soils after irrigation is nontoxic. In fact, chromium in this form is a naturally occurring metal that is an essential ingredient in the human diet, one that is often included in multiple vitamin/mineral supplements.Reading these words, one could reasonably think PG&E's hexavalent chromium was almost beneficial. As the plaintiffs' trial brief wryly commented, the flyer might have invited a person to "sprinkle some on your morning cereal."Failure to properly identify the dangerous type of "chromium" it had dumped into the environment wasn't PG&E's only omission. The flyer made it sound like detection of contamination at the compressor station was a new development. It wasn't. PG&E first knew about plant contamination by at least 1965.CHAPTER 4 - 22 YEARS LATEPG&E records revealed people at the company were concerned about chrome 6 contamination of Hinkley's groundwater "by at least the summer of 1965." (Plaintiffs' Trial Brief)Investigating what PG&E officials knew about the contamination - and when they knew it - Fox TV (local channel 11) ran a series on May 23, 24 and 26, 1994. Here is part of the verbatim transcript contained in the court's file for the May 23rd report:Fox Reporter: What did PG&E know and when did officials know it?[PG&E Representative]: It wasn't discovered until 1987 when, through a routine environmental survey, which we do on all our sites such as this, the Company discovered it.Fox Reporter: But this man, Victor Moore, worked at the Hinkley plant for more than 32 years and he says that a fellow worker found the contamination in 1965, across the street fromthe plant.The Fox Reporter then relates additional investigation results:Fox Reporter: We wanted to talk to Moore's co-worker but the man has died of cancer. However Fox News has obtained PG&E test data on that same well, and it seems to back up Moore's claim. It shows that in September, 1965, PG&E found levels up to 400 times the EPA's current safety standard, and answers from a top PG&E official under oath for the current lawsuit, bolster that 1965 discovery date.Trying to understand this apparent inconsistency, the Fox Reporter pressed the issue:Fox Reporter: We asked [the PG&E official] to explain that apparent 22-year contradiction.He says PG&E senior management wasn't told until 1987.In other words, PG&E officials in Hinkley knew about the extraordinary levels of chrome 6 contamination, but senior management in San Francisco didn't?The suggestion that senior management in San Francisco didn't know what was happening atHinkley for 35 years is the biggest lie of all. (Plaintiffs' 6/6/94 Trial Brief) Based on the evidence, high levels of chrome 6 contamination found in 1987 could not have been a surprise to the company, notwithstanding whether senior management knew. People and animals who lived in the area had been breathing, ingesting, and absorbing dangerous toxins into their bodies for decades.Why did PG&E use so much chrome 6 at the Hinkley Compressor Station? And how didthat chemical travel from plant facilities into the bodies of people who lived nearby?CHAPTER 5 - THE COMPRESSOR STATIONHinkley is located in the Mojave Desert, near the town of Barstow, California. It is not far off the famous Route 66, about 150 miles from Las Vegas. Surrounded by beautiful scenery, Hinkley is an important point on PG&E's natural gas pipeline as it travels from Texas to California.The purpose of the Hinkley Compressor Station is best described by PG&E in the flyer itgave to neighbors of the plant.The Hinkley Compressor Station was built in 1952 as part of the pipeline system that brings southwest natural gas to PG&E's service area. These PG&E gas lines serve Barstow and the surrounding area by delivering gas to Southwest Gas
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