Erin : the whistle blower par excellance

I have a real crush with Erin Brockovich-Ellis , who is an enviromentalist, whistle blower, social activist, consultant She is a passionate speaker also when she speaks you have no choice but to be carried with her passionate thoughts because of her honesty.
She had been a legal clerk who, despite
the lack of a formal law school education, was instrumental in
constructing a case against the Pacific Gas and Electric Company
(PG&E) of California in 1993. Since the release of the movie that
shares her story and name, she has hosted Challenge America with Erin
Brockovich on ABC and Final Justice on Lifetime. She is the president
of Brockovich Research & Consulting, a consulting firm. She is
currently working as a consultant for the New York law firm Weitz &
Luxenberg, which has a focus on personal injury claims for asbestos
exposure.
Brockovich was born Erin L. E. Pattee in Lawrence, Kansas to Frank
Pattee, an industrial engineer and Betty Jo O'Neal-Pattee, a
journalist. She attended Lawrence High School then Kansas State
University in Manhattan, Kansas. She worked as a management trainee
for Kmart in 1981 but quit after a few months and entered some potent
Brockovich was born Erin L. E. Pattee in Lawrence, Kansas to Frank
Pattee, an industrial engineer and Betty Jo O'Neal-Pattee, a
journalist. She attended Lawrence High School then Kansas State
University in Manhattan, Kansas. She worked as a management trainee
for Kmart in 1981 but quit after a few months and entered some
potentially lucrative beauty pageants. After winning Miss Pacific
Coast in 1981, she soon gave up pageant life because she found it
shallow. She has lived in California since 1982.

Brockovich was involved in a car accident in Reno and was seriously
injured. Her case was settled out of court for $50,000.

Brockovich received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters, Honoris
Causa Degree and was Commencement Speaker at Loyola Marymount
University in Los Angeles on May 5, 2007.


Pacific Gas litigation :The case alleged contamination of drinking
water with hexavalent chromium, also known as chromium(VI), in the
southern California town of Hinkley. At the center of the case is a
facility called the Hinkley Compressor Station, part of a natural gas
pipeline connecting to the San Francisco Bay Area constructed in 1952.
Between 1952 and 1966, PG&E used hexavalent chromium to fight
corrosion in the cooling tower. The wastewater dissolved the
hexavalent chromium from the cooling towers and was discharged to
unlined ponds at the site. Some of the wastewater percolated into the
groundwater, affecting an area near the plant approximately two miles
long and nearly a mile wide. The case was settled in 1996 for $333
million, the largest settlement ever paid in a direct action lawsuit
in U.S. history.

Chromium(VI) is known to be toxic and carcinogenic, and the 0.58 ppm
in the groundwater in Hinkley exceeded the Maximum Contaminant Level
of 0.10 ppm currently set by the United States Environmental
Protection Agency.However, while it has long been known that
chromium(VI) is carcinogenic when ingested via inhalation, drinking
water laced with chromium(VI) is widely believed to be less toxic;
some experts argue that the exposures at Hinkley were too low to cause
health effects, while others respond that there were too many gaps in
the data on chromium to dismiss the Hinkley residents' case.[7] When
Harvard's School of Public Health gave Brockovich an award in 2005,
scientists were divided on the merits of her work.[citation needed]
National Institutes of Health researchers announced May 16, 2007 there
is strong evidence that hexavalent chromium causes cancer in
laboratory animals when it is consumed in drinking water. The two-year
study conducted by the National Toxicology Program (NTP)[8] shows that
animals given hexavalent chromium for three months developed malignant
tumors on their pituitary gland.[9] The report warns that
extrapolation of these results to other species, including
characterization of hazards and risks to humans, requires analyses
beyond the intent of the report. Nevertheless, health care
professionals agree that the current data on chromium(VI) are
sufficient to justify strict legal limits on the hexavalent chromium
concentration in water, and that neglect of these limits imposes a
major health threat on the affected population.

Working with Thousand Oaks, California-based lawyer Edward L. Masry,
Brockovich went on to participate in other anti-pollution lawsuits.
One accuses Whitman Corporation of chromium contamination in Willits,
California. Another lawsuit, which lists 1,200 plaintiffs, alleges
contamination near PG&E's Kettleman Hills Compressor Station in Kings
County, California, along the same pipeline as the Hinkley site. The
Kettleman suit settled for $335 million in 2006. After experiencing
problems with mold contamination in her own home in the Conejo Valley,
Brockovich became a prominent activist and educator in this area as
well. Today, Brockovich is a noted speaker in demand for U.S. and
international speaking engagement.

Her story is the topic of a feature film, Erin Brockovich, starring
Julia Roberts in the title role. The film was nominated for five
Academy Awards, including Best Actress in a Leading Role, Best Actor
in a Supporting Role, Best Director, Best Picture, and Best Writing in
a Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen. Roberts won the Academy
Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Erin Brockovich. Erin
Brockovich herself had a cameo role as a waitress named Julia R. (in
reference to Julia Roberts playing Erin).