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'Erin Brockovich' town gets cleanup order
Krystal Park, 13, reads a small sign across the street from her house warning of 'nonpotable water', which in fact contains hexavalent chromium, July 19, 2001 in the Mojave Desert town of Hinkley, CA, west of Barstow. Pacific Gas & Electric polluted the water with toxic hexavalent chromium for three decades. Health officials are now testing the area for airborne chromium pollution. Health officials are now testing the area for airborne chromium pollution. The community''s pollution struggle inspired the movie 'Erin Brockovich.'
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'Erin Brockovich' town gets cleanup order
State water regulators have issued an initial cleanup order for hexavalent chromium pollution in Hinkley, the small San Bernardino County town made famous by the movie "Erin Brockovich."
Chromium-6 is a cancer causing chemical left behind in groundwater after Pacific Gas & Electric used it to cool compressed natural gas transported through pipelines. In the 1950s and 1960s, PG&E dumped chromium-6 into unlined ponds, where it seeped into the ground.
To this day, the chemical continues to move through underground aquifers, sometimes as much as 2 and a half feet a day. Clean-up is complex, and while remediation began in 1988, it has been stalled at times by legal wrangling.
The Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board's new partial order requires PG&E to contain the underground pollution plume where its boundaries are known and determine the boundaries in areas where they are unclear.
Given the complexity and scope of the problem, a final cleanup order is still years off, with decades of work likely to follow.
Tests at some wells have revealed chromium-6 in amounts nearly 400 times the state safety limit. No Hinkley residents draw water from those wells. PG&E is responsible for providing bottled water while the tainted wells are treated.
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