Pacific Gas & Electric: Social Responsibility Gone Bad

| Pacific Gas & Electric: | Social Responsibility Gone Bad | | By Angela | 10/15/2010 | |

When you pour yourself a glass of water out of the sink at home, you trust that all measures have been taken to ensure that the water you drink is safe to consume. There is no real reason to second guess that, right? In this case, that statement is not true. The people who lived in Hinkley, California in the 1990’s are regretting that trust they had in the groundwater in their town. As you may already know, I am referring to the case of Hinkley v. Pacific Gas & Electric. The film, Erin Brockovich, chronicles this true story of PG&E and the residents of Hinkley, describing how the Hinkley residents were deceived by PG&E, and how they were brought to justice. This particular case led to “the biggest settlement on record for a civil class action lawsuit” (Famous Trials, Erin Brockovich). In this case, the residents of Hinkley, CA alleged contamination of their drinking water with hexavalent chromium, also known as chromium 6. The center of the case was a facility called the Hinkley Compressor Station, part of a natural gas pipeline that was constructed in 1952. Between 1952 and 1966, PG&E used hexavalent chromium to fight corrosion within the cooling tower at the Hinkley Compressor Station. The wastewater dissolved the hexavalent chromium from the cooling towers and was released into unlined ponds at the plant site. This wastewater permeated into the groundwater, affecting an area near the plant “approximately two miles long and nearly a mile wide” (PG&E Hinkley Chromium Cleanup). I will further discuss some of the ethical issues involved in this case. The unfortunate part of this is that PG&E knew about the chromium contamination, but chose not to tell the residents of Hinkley about it. PG&E, being “the utility that provides natural gas and electricity to most of the northern two-thirds of California, from Bakersfield almost to the Oregon border” (Pacific Gas & Electric Company), has a social & environmental responsibility to all of the residents they serve, and they did not live up to this responsibility. When Erin Brockovich (with the help of Ed Masry of The Law Offices of Masry & Vititoe) uncovered this irresponsibility, PG&E’s unethical practices came to the surface, against their will. If it wasn’t for Brockovich’s intuitiveness, persistence and high level of moral standards, this case may never have come to light. She felt she had a moral responsibility to the people of Hinkley to see this case through, and fight for all of the people who had become ill, and also lost their lives because of the chromium contamination. An obvious ethical dilemma of this case is the deception of PG&E, and the affect that the deception had on the members of the Hinkley community. In this case, PG&E deceived the entire town of Hinkley by allowing them to believe that their water source was safe. At one point, PG&E held a seminar inviting 200 Hinkley residents to explain the benefits of using chromium 3 as a rust inhibitor for the machines at their utility plant. Company representatives stated that “it was okay for people to swim in a pool where chrome 3 concentrations were higher than EPA limits, it was fine to swim in the pools because chlorine and other pool chemicals kill any contaminants in the pool (including chromium), and that the water supply was completely safe and there were no toxic problems with their water” (Famous Trials, Erin Brockovich). The deception is clear when the residents of Hinkley later find out that PG&E was not actually using chromium 3 at their plant, but was using chromium 6 instead. As explained previously, hexavalent chromium, also known as chromium 6, is extremely dangerous and harmful to humans. It can cause anything from severe headaches and nosebleeds, chronic illnesses, organ failure, and many types of cancer. The contamination can also get into an individual’s DNA, and is passed on to newborn children. Another ethical dilemma that was illustrated in this case was bribery. There are two examples where bribery was used by PG&E to persuade the members of the Hinkley community to drop the charges against them and not take the case to trial. The first example was when a PG&E representative offered to pay Donna Jensen (a fictional character in the movie Erin Brockovich, but based on an actual person) and her family, who were residents of Hinkley, $250,000 dollars for their home to drop the charges against them. PG&E’s argument was that this offer was considerably higher than what the Jensen’s home was worth, and they would be silly not to take it. The Jensen’s did not accept their offer, knowing full well why the offer was being made – PG&E wanted to evacuate all of the residents in the contaminated area without ever having to tell them that they were living, breathing and drinking toxins coming from their own plant just a few miles away. It was an insulting bribe from the Jensen’s perspective, and PG&E should not have attempted to use bribery in this situation and been honest from the very beginning. Another example of bribery was when PG&E chose to pay for doctor visits for Hinkley community members with health issues. They bribed the residents of Hinkley by sending them to specific doctors chosen by PG&E, and covering the bill. These specific doctors were instructed by PG&E to tell residents that all of the health problems they were experiencing were completely unrelated to the chromium used at their plant. This is an extremely unethical behavior in my mind (from the doctors and from PG&E), as it compounds the negative aspects of bribery, deception and dishonesty. It was clear that PG&E must have paid these doctors to tell the residents that their water was safe and that their health problems were not associated with the chromium levels in the water. The fact that a doctor would lie to a patient is just as, if not more unethical than what PG&E did by lying to the citizens. I could not find any information on what happened to these doctors, but they should have lost their right to practice as a result of this case. In some sense, this issue was resolved by the settlement that PG&E was ordered to pay to the people of Hinkley in 1996, but this was too little, too late. They should have taken proactive measures in the beginning by removing the hexavalent chromium from their processes as soon as they found out the level of harm that the chromium produced, and admitting wrongdoing as soon as they found out the damage had been done. They should have done everything in their power to put a stop to the spread of the community’s health problems caused by chromium 6, or spreading to additional members of society. They also should have taken it upon themselves to reimburse medical expenses to anyone in the Hinkley community who was affected by the hexavalent chromium contamination. Lastly, there’s the issue of the hexavalent chromium contamination harming the environment. This chromium was clearly very dangerous to humans, and it was also very harmful to the environment, particularly to the soil and the water system. “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Our Common Future). PG&E did not seem to care about sustainability whatsoever. They did not enact policies to keep the water safe, and therefore compromised the future of Hinkley and all of its residents by contaminating the water. It should also be said that the reason the water was able to contaminate the grounds is because PG&E failed to add liner to the holding ponds at their plant to keep the flow-off water safe. This was clearly harmful to the environment and risked sustainability. It took the lawsuit from Erin Brockovich and Ed Masry to motivate them to line their holding ponds and prevent future flow-off water from being contaminated, when they should have taken care of this issue from the very beginning. PG&E could have resolved this ethical issue easily, however instead continued on their path of unethical behavior, which they paid for in the long run. This case was settled in 1996, and $333 million dollars was awarded to the residents of Hinkley. Although both Ed and Erin did some unethical things while investigating and working on this case, it was to the benefit of the residents and they were able to win the case. “The settlement awarded to the plaintiffs in the case of Hinkley v. Pacific Gas & Electric was the largest in a direct-action lawsuit in US history. PG&E claims they no longer use hexavalent chromium in any of their compressor plants and that all of their holding ponds are lined to prevent groundwater contamination” (Erin Brockovich). Overall, this case was a great learning experience because it brings to light numerous unethical behaviors that can happen within a company. I understand that it would be difficult to act against your company as I believe it was for other PG&E employees; however, this case illustrated exactly how important it is to act in an ethical manner, even if your company practices are unethical.

Works Cited

"Pacific Gas and Electric Company." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 16 Oct. 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Gas_and_Electric_Company
Erin Brockovich. Dir. Steven Soderbergh. With Julia Roberts, Albert Finney, and Aaron Eckhart. Jersey Films, 2000.
"Famous Trials, Erin Brockovich." Enemy at the Gates, Thirteen Days, Erin Brockovich, Stories Behind The Movies. 16 Oct. 2010. http://www.lawbuzz.com/famous_trials/erin_brockovich/erin_brockovich_ch1.htm#preface
"Our Common Future, Chapter 2: Towards Sustainable Development - Gathering a Body of Global Agreements." UN Documents. 17 Oct. 2010. http://www.un-documents.net/ocf-02.htm
"PG&E Hinkley Chromium Cleanup." CA State Water Resources Control Board. 16 Oct. 2010. http://www.swrcb.ca.gov/rwqcb6/water_issues/projects/pge/index.shtml

Cited: "Pacific Gas and Electric Company." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 16 Oct. 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Gas_and_Electric_Company Erin Brockovich. Dir. Steven Soderbergh. With Julia Roberts, Albert Finney, and Aaron Eckhart. Jersey Films, 2000. "Famous Trials, Erin Brockovich." Enemy at the Gates, Thirteen Days, Erin Brockovich, Stories Behind The Movies. 16 Oct. 2010. http://www.lawbuzz.com/famous_trials/erin_brockovich/erin_brockovich_ch1.htm#preface "Our Common Future, Chapter 2: Towards Sustainable Development - Gathering a Body of Global Agreements." UN Documents. 17 Oct. 2010. http://www.un-documents.net/ocf-02.htm "PG&E Hinkley Chromium Cleanup." CA State Water Resources Control Board. 16 Oct. 2010. http://www.swrcb.ca.gov/rwqcb6/water_issues/projects/pge/index.shtml