Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) was in 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.

             Many people and domestic animals in the high desert town of Hinkley, California were getting sick. Some had died. 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. PG&E records revealed people at the company were concerned about chrome 6 contamination of Hinkley's groundwater "by at least the summer of 1965¡. There were even amounts of residue left on the soil after PG&E sprayed contaminated wastewater into the air. After the water dried, soil with chrome 6 was free to blow in the wind where it could be inhaled by living things. .

             The company sent 750,000 additional gallons of chrome 6 wastewater every month to the ponds for another six years. Once the toxic material was in the ponds, there was nothing to stop it from getting into the wells that supplied nearby homes, farms and ranches.Once it was in the aquifer that supplied Hinkley residents with all their water, nothing stopped the toxic material from getting into the peoples' wells. .

             It isn't easy to uncover the truth about contaminated groundwater. No one from the polluting company is going to hand over documents containing proof of what happened. The thought of starting a massive contamination case can be pretty scary.