ERIN BROCKOVICH.

• Author: Ellis, Erin Brockovich

Erin Brockovich married Eric Ellis in 1999, but her unmarried name is more universally recognizable. "Erin Brockovich" was one of the year 2000's most popular films. Julia Roberts played the lead, winning an Academy Award for Best Actress. The film told the story of a file clerk in a law firm (Brockovich) who changed the world. Toxic chromium 6 from a PG&E power plant was leaking into the groundwater of Hinkley, California, and hundreds of people were sick there. (PG&E owns two of Massachusetts' "Filthy Five" power plants, at Salem Harbor and at Somerset's Brayton Point. CLF's April 2000 lawsuit resulted in a $21 million settlement that forced PG&E to stop leaking toxic metals into Salem's harbor and groundwater, and Somerset's bay and ground water. For more on CLF and PG&E, see Massachusetts and Rhode Island state pages -- 37 and 39.) After more than a year of research and of interviewing Hinkley residents, Brockovich was convinced of cause-and-effect; her law firm, Masry & Vititoe, sued on behalf of 650 plaintiffs. In 1996, a settlement was arranged for $333 million. It was the largest such settlement in U.S. history.

"I wanted to be a doctor when I was a kid, but I was a dyslexic. Everyone called me stupid and told me I would never achieve anything great. When I realized how difficult it was going to be just getting through high school, I thought, well, maybe I won't be a doctor, but I could see myself as a model, or as an actress. I'd always had high hopes for myself, but I never thought I'd do a toxic litigation, and have a movie made about it named after me, starring someone like Julia Roberts. If I had said anything like that, people would have called me crazy.

I have to say, though, that the whole time we were involved in Hinkley I never thought the case would amount to much. I was a divorced mom with three kids, and all I was thinking about was feeding my children. Being able to do that made me feel really good. I wasn't spending my time chasing ex-husbands around, getting money out of them. And I felt really good about my work at Hinkley because I liked the people. I decided that no matter what the outcome turned out to be -- and I wasn't always sure what I was doing -- if I could make a difference for just one person, whether it was holding a hand, or just providing a shoulder to cry on, then I was doing the right thing.

The people of Hinkley were instrumental in what we achieved. One person would share a lot of information with me, then offer up the name of a neighbor, and that person would offer up a name. I don't know that they realized it but they were helping each other. I give them all the credit in the world. Cooperating with me was a difficult decision for many of them because they had relatives or spouses who worked for PG&E. But they were so worried about their children that they came forward. I just beam with pride for them.

* What I'm Doing Now

I'm still with Masry & Vititoe. August will be 10 years. That's the longest job I've ever had in my life. Within the first 30 days of the movie's release we had 100,000 hits on our website. Everyone had a case for us. We've gotten involved in a chromium 6 case in Willits, California. We also have an attorney and a paralegal overseeing a landfill contamination case in Farmington, New Hampshire, as well as air and groundwater contamination cases in Brockport, New York, and Fairmont and Reesville, West Virginia. Our job now is to see that water purveyors are held to higher standards, and that testing is done more often -- to ensure safer water for people to drink. Both Ed Masry and I are working with California senator Barbara Boxer on legislation, both state and federal, to introduce regulation of chromium 6 in drinking water. I'm still head of research, but I'm not hands-on, like I was with Hinkley. I've had my own toxic exposures, which keep me out of hot zones...