Brockovich for N1 about environmental activism

All of that really started to work for me, said Brockovich in an exclusive interview with N1 in Belgrade where she attended A1 Talk organized by the company A1.

Erin Brockovich is an American environmental activist famous for the case she built against the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) in 1993 involving groundwater contamination in Hinkley, California. PG&E was forced to pay a settlement of 333 million US dollars, the largest settlement ever paid in a direct-action lawsuit in the US. The lawsuit was the subject of an Oscar-winning film, Erin Brockovich, starring Julia Roberts as Brockovich.

Commenting on Hinkley, Brockovich said people there drank green water and would see two-headed frogs.

She said the locals would tell her stories about cows covered in tumors, and dogs spinning in circles and throwing themselves into trees after drinking the water.

“They were struggling for anyone to believe them. From the moment I got there, it didn’t feel like a fight, it felt like help, like lifting up a voice, like bringing attention to something that was really going wrong in the environment,” said Brockovich.

She explained that one of the first things that got in the way of her work were people saying she was not a doctor, a lawyer, a scientist.

“I didn’t think I needed to have any of those so-called credentials to be a human and to feel and see that something was wrong,” she said.

Asked if there have been any other victories, in addition to the one in Hinkley when the company was forced to admit liability and pay up, Brockovich said justice – or victory – comes in many forms.

In all the communities, for them, justice is finding out the truth, said Brockovich.

“In America we have these big lawsuits and settlements, the money is a very small part of what justice means to them. Because money won’t bring back their health necessarily, money doesn’t bring back the child that they lost,” she said.

We’ve had many victories in this regard where justice begins with acknowledging the people and the community, not whitewashing, pushing them aside, she added.

Brockovich said that in California, where she lives, although there are very good regulations, what is missing is better oversight and follow-through.

“Instead we just want to add more regulations to get rid of the good regulations, to add more regulations to get rid of the bad regulations…” said Brockovich.