Friday, October 19, 2012

Some learn it the hard way

When a goof-up cost Pacific Gas & Electric company $333 million...

Several blunders have led to the environment’s decline but only those that affect humans come to the limelight. And, rarely, those who cause such troubles are made to pay for it. One such blunder of contaminating ground water with chromium in the Southern California town of Hinkley was done by Pacific Gas & Electric company. The depiction of its severe effects on the health of the local people has been shown in the Academy Award winning movie – Erin Brockovich, where Julia Roberts plays the lead role of Erin who fights for the cause.

“My investigation eventually established that the health of countless people who lived in and around Hinkley, California, in the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s had been severely compromised by exposure to toxic Chromium 6. The Chromium 6 had leaked into the groundwater from the nearby PG&E company’s compressor station. In 1996, as a result of the largest direct action lawsuit of its kind, spearheaded by me and Ed Masry, the giant utility paid the largest toxic tort injury settlement in U.S. history: $333 million in damages to more than 600 Hinkley residents,” writes Erin in her online biography.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

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