Erin Brockovich

Heather Samuels

History 104 Dr. Meza

Film Critique

Erin Brockovich

Throughout history, many events have occurred in which big corporations try to overpower and control smaller people. Unfortunately this is inevitable for smaller businesses who have no control over the worlds industries. 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 by a women named Erin Brockovch.

Erin Brockovich was a formally unemployed single mother of three working in a California law firm. After a couple of months of research about medical records and real estate files, she uncovered information that led to the biggest settlement on record for a civil class action lawsuit. People and animals all over the small town of Hinkley California were getting sick without explanations. Some of these victims have even died. Since the residents depended on their local groundwater supply for all their needs, Brockovich started wondering if these illnesses and the water supply had any sort of connection to the deaths that had occurred.

In December of 1987 officials have advised the state of California that there was an abundance of Chrome 6 in the groundwater. The levels were 10 times higher than the amount allowed by the law. Chrome 6 is a cancer causing chemical which is extremely dangerous to the lungs. Since many of Hinkleys residents were complaining about respiratory problems, a link to chrome 6 was a big possibility. After the government became aware of the pollution that was taking place, Erin Brockovich soon discovers that the company PG and E is trying quietly to buy land that was contaminated by hexavalent chromium, a deadly toxic waste that the company is