You probably remember the movie. Julia Roberts in a floral vest, slamming a glass of water down in front of a corporate lawyer and telling her it was "brought in 'specially" from a contaminated well. It’s the ultimate David vs. Goliath story. A foul-mouthed, single-mother-turned-legal-assistant takes on Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) and wins a record-breaking $333 million settlement.
But here is the thing: the credits rolled in 2000, and most people stopped paying attention.
In the real Hinkley, California, the story didn't end with a celebratory check. Honestly, the "victory" was just the start of a decades-long slow motion collapse. Today, Hinkley is basically a ghost town. If you drove through it right now, you’d see more foundation pads and "No Trespassing" signs than actual homes. The green, lush oasis portrayed in some scenes is gone, replaced by a desert landscape that's slowly reclaiming the grid.
The Toxic Legacy of Chromium-6
Back in 1952, PG&E started using hexavalent chromium (also known as chromium-6) at their Hinkley compressor station. They used it to prevent rust in the cooling towers. Then, they did something that sounds like a cartoon villain move: they dumped the wastewater into unlined ponds.
It didn't stay in the ponds. It seeped into the groundwater.
For decades, families in Hinkley drank that water, bathed in it, and filled their swimming pools with it. They were told it was fine. PG&E even sent out flyers suggesting that the "chromium" in their water was the healthy kind found in multivitamins. That was a lie. They were talking about chromium-3, but the town was actually drinking chromium-6—a known carcinogen when inhaled, and, as we’ve since learned, highly dangerous when ingested.
What the Settlement Actually Looked Like
The $333 million settlement in 1996 was the largest of its kind at the time. It sounds like an astronomical amount of money. But when you peel back the layers, the math gets kinda depressing.
🔗 Read more: Finding the Right Word That Starts With AJ for Games and Everyday Writing
- The Law Firm's Cut: Masry & Vititoe took about 40% of that money (around $133 million).
- The Plaintiffs: There were 633 people involved in the original suit.
- The Distribution: Payouts weren't even. Some people got millions, but many families received as little as $10,000 or $40,000—hardly enough to cover a lifetime of medical bills or a new house.
- Erin’s Bonus: Brockovich herself received a $2.5 million bonus for her work on the case.
People often think the settlement "fixed" Hinkley. It didn't. The money went to the people, but the town's infrastructure and land value remained tethered to a toxic plume that refused to stay still.
The Plume That Wouldn't Stop Growing
Remediation is a tricky business. PG&E has spent over $750 million trying to clean up the mess since the settlement. They’ve tried everything: pumping ethanol into the ground to stimulate bacteria that converts chromium-6 into the less-harmful chromium-3, and even using "land treatment units" (basically fields of alfalfa) to filter the water.
But in 2010, something scary happened. The plume appeared to be growing.
Actually, it was more complicated than that. Newer, more sensitive testing showed that the contamination had spread further than originally mapped. This triggered a second wave of panic. PG&E began a massive property buyout program. They offered to buy the homes of anyone whose well tested positive for the chemical.
Most people took the deal. They took the money and ran.
When a utility company buys two-thirds of the property in a town and bulldozes the houses to prevent squatters, the town dies. The school closed. The post office closed. The general store? Gone. If you visit Hinkley now, you'll see "pipe stubs" everywhere—thousands of groundwater monitoring wells sticking out of the dirt like little tombstones.
💡 You might also like: Is there actually a legal age to stay home alone? What parents need to know
The Science Debate: Is There a Cancer Cluster?
This is where things get controversial and, frankly, a bit messy.
There is a long-standing argument about whether Hinkley actually had a "cancer cluster." A 2010 study by the California Cancer Registry suggested that cancer rates in Hinkley were actually "unremarkable" from 1988 to 2008. Critics, including Brockovich herself, absolutely hammered this study. They argued the sample size was too small and that it didn't account for the people who had already died or moved away.
Epidemiology is notoriously difficult in small populations. If you have 3,000 people and three people get a rare cancer, is that a cluster or just bad luck?
Regardless of the statistical debate, the people living there weren't thinking about p-values. They were looking at their neighbors with nosebleeds, kidney failure, and reproductive issues. To them, the "science" felt like a secondary concern to the reality of their daily lives.
Where Things Stand in 2026
If you’re looking for a silver lining, it’s in the regulations. The Erin Brockovich Hinkley California saga forced the world to look at water quality differently.
In April 2024, California finally did something it had been trying to do for a decade: it established the nation’s first specific Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) for hexavalent chromium at 10 parts per billion (ppb). Before this, it was lumped in with "total chromium," which allowed for much higher levels of the toxic stuff.
📖 Related: The Long Haired Russian Cat Explained: Why the Siberian is Basically a Living Legend
Is 10 ppb enough?
Activists say no. They point to the state's "Public Health Goal," which is a measly 0.02 ppb—the level at which there's a negligible cancer risk. But 10 ppb is at least a legally enforceable line in the sand. For Hinkley, where some wells once measured in the thousands of ppb, it’s a standard that came thirty years too late.
Reality Check: The Town Today
Hinkley is a shell.
PG&E still operates the compressor station. They still maintain the monitoring wells. They are still legally required to clean the water until it reaches "background levels"—the amount of chromium that would naturally occur in the desert soil (around 3.1 ppb).
Most of the original plaintiffs are gone. Some passed away from the very illnesses they sued over. Others moved to nearby Barstow or left the state entirely. The few who remain are often those who simply couldn't afford to leave or those who are so attached to the quiet of the Mojave that they’ll risk the water.
Lessons You Can Actually Use
The Hinkley story isn't just a piece of 90s nostalgia. It’s a blueprint for how environmental justice actually works (and fails). If you’re worried about the water in your own zip code, there are things you should do right now:
- Check Your Consumer Confidence Report (CCR): Every public water supplier is required by the EPA to provide an annual report on what’s in your water. If you haven't seen yours, look it up on your local utility's website.
- Private Well Testing: If you are on a private well, you are the "utility." No one is testing that water for you. You should be testing for heavy metals and VOCs every couple of years.
- Reverse Osmosis (RO) Filters: If you’re worried about chromium-6, your standard pitcher filter probably won't cut it. You need a certified RO system or an ion-exchange filter specifically designed for heavy metals.
- Follow the "Plume": Environmental contamination moves. If there’s a Superfund site or an old industrial plant within a few miles of your home, check the state water board maps to see which way the groundwater is flowing.
Hinkley taught us that a big check doesn't buy back a community. It also taught us that one person with a "potty mouth" and a filing cabinet can actually change the law. We just have to remember that the "happily ever after" in the movies usually leaves out the part where the town disappears.