In 2000, “Fairly Girl” star Julia Roberts captivated film buffs along with her Oscar-winning portrayal of the title function in “Erin Brockovich.” The movie, which additionally featured the late Albert Finney, was impressed by the work of a paralegal who investigated PG&E in a groundwater contamination case. Brockovich, with the assistance of Tom Girardi and different attorneys, efficiently sued the fuel and electrical firm for $333 million on behalf of the residents of Hinkley, California, in 1996, the biggest settlement in a direct-action lawsuit at that time.

Earlier than her function within the Hinkley case, Brockovich was an unemployed mom of three with no authorized expertise. However what she lacked in experience, she made up for in willpower. “In every single place I used to be going on this little neighborhood, someone had bronchial asthma, a grievance of a continual cough, recurring bronchitis, recurring rashes, uncommon joint aches, nosebleeds,” she mentioned on ABC Information’ “20/20” in 2021. “It did not make sense, and so the extra I ask questions … the extra I began to piece the puzzle collectively.”

Brockovich believes the case was necessary not just for the folks of Hinkley but in addition for opening our eyes to an even bigger challenge. “We’re nonetheless speaking about this, and that film got here out 21 years in the past. And it was nearly earlier than its time as a result of it was about environmental air pollution that we’re within the throes of right this moment,” she mentioned. The case — and later the movie — modified Brockovich’s life in additional methods than one, notably as a result of it put her on a path she continues to be on right this moment.

Her work on the PG&E case impressed Erin Brockovich to proceed to struggle in opposition to big-name firms for environmental injury. The self-dubbed environmental activist is especially involved with water contamination by per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — generally known as PFAS or colloquially as ceaselessly chemical compounds for his or her incapability to interrupt down within the atmosphere. Nevertheless, she has litigated wide-ranging circumstances, from mould contamination to a methane leak.

She can also be the founding father of The Brockovich Report, an internet site and publication by way of which she discusses environmental points, what she calls “the nationwide water disaster,” poisonous chemical compounds, and their potential hyperlinks to well being issues. Brockovich has taken her social justice activism to completely different mediums, together with a e book titled “Superman’s Not Coming.” Regardless of being an writer and public speaker, Brockovich continues to behave on the bottom. “Up in Maine this week uncovering huge poisonous PFAS contamination unfold far and broad polluting water, land, meals chain and our well being,” she captioned a Could 2022 Instagram put up (seen above).

Regardless that she grew to become an activist after the PG&E litigation, Brockovich’s issues with water contamination began in her childhood in Kansas. “After I was slightly lady, my father would sing songs to me on a regular basis about water. We might be taking part in down on the creeks and he would make up little tunes singing, ‘See that beautiful water, trickling down the stream, do not take it without any consideration, sometime it may not be seen,'” she shared on her web site.