buisness ethics
"ERIN BROCKOVICH"
(ANDERSON v PACIFIC GAS & ELECTRIC)
Author: Carole D. Bos, J.D.
ONLINE AT: http://www.awesomestories.com/movies/erin_brockovich/erin_brockovich_ch1.htm
PREFACE
Mr. Masry's office has done an incredible job.
I don't know where he got this stuff, ferreting out information for the past several months that will make your hair stand up on edge.
Walter Lack
January 4, 1994
Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) was in trouble. Serious 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.
CHAPTER 2
DEATH AND DESTRUCTION IN THE MOJAVE
Many people and domestic animals in the high desert town of Hinkley, California were getting sick. Some had died. Since residents depended on the local groundwater supply for all their needs, were the illnesses somehow related to PG&E's Gas Compressor Station located nearby?
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.
Known as a cancer-causing chemical since the 1920s, chrome 6 is especially dangerous to lungs. Since many of the Hinkley residents were reporting respiratory problems, a link to chrome 6 contamination seemed possible.
After PG&E reported the pollution to the government, company officials started a program to buy every piece of property in the community thought to be affected by the pollution. (That's what medical
(ANDERSON v PACIFIC GAS & ELECTRIC)
Author: Carole D. Bos, J.D.
ONLINE AT: http://www.awesomestories.com/movies/erin_brockovich/erin_brockovich_ch1.htm
PREFACE
Mr. Masry's office has done an incredible job.
I don't know where he got this stuff, ferreting out information for the past several months that will make your hair stand up on edge.
Walter Lack
January 4, 1994
Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) was in trouble. Serious 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.
CHAPTER 2
DEATH AND DESTRUCTION IN THE MOJAVE
Many people and domestic animals in the high desert town of Hinkley, California were getting sick. Some had died. Since residents depended on the local groundwater supply for all their needs, were the illnesses somehow related to PG&E's Gas Compressor Station located nearby?
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.
Known as a cancer-causing chemical since the 1920s, chrome 6 is especially dangerous to lungs. Since many of the Hinkley residents were reporting respiratory problems, a link to chrome 6 contamination seemed possible.
After PG&E reported the pollution to the government, company officials started a program to buy every piece of property in the community thought to be affected by the pollution. (That's what medical