As Erin Brockovich Movie Turns 25, I'm Still Fighting For Clean Water

New Report Shows Almost 100 Million People Drinking Water Polluted With Chromium-6, Arsenic, & Nitrate

Erin Brockovich is a 2000 American biographical legal drama film about the true story of Erin Brockovich, portrayed by Julia Roberts (pictured above).

When I started my work in Hinkley, California, in 1991, I saw a lot of health problems in the community. Children dealing with terminal cancers, constant nosebleeds, and chronic fatigue. Other residents were dealing with multiple miscarriages, Crohn’s disease, lupus, breast, lung, brain, and lymph cancers.

Water issues are always health issues.

At first, I couldn’t understand what was making everyone sick, but eventually we figured out that it was the water. I helped uncover that Pacific Gas & Electric had been leaking toxic chromium-6 (also known as hexavalent chromium) into the groundwater, poisoning the town’s water supply and causing health issues for its residents for more than 30 years.

That case became the largest medical settlement lawsuit in its time, awarding $333 million in damages to more than 600 people.

What I didn’t realize then was that Hinkley was not an isolated case. Unsafe levels of that same contaminant (chromium-6) have been detected in tap water in all 50 states. It continues to be one of the most persistent and complex environmental challenges of our time.

A new report and interactive map published today by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) shows that thousands of communities are drinking water with chromium-6, along with arsenic and nitrate.

The map illustrates the prevalence of co-occurring drinking water contamination,

1. Blue dots identify drinking water systems contaminated with chromium-6.

2. Orange dots show systems with both chromium-6 contamination and either arsenic or nitrate in tap water.

3. Purple dots show systems where chromium-6 and both arsenic and nitrate contaminate the drinking water.

“This is a significant national problem and public health issue,” said Tasha Stoiber, Ph.D., a senior scientist at EWG in a statement. “People are exposed to multiple contaminants in their drinking water, and analysis shows that regulating and treating them simultaneously is a more effective and efficient approach than focusing on each chemical separately.”

We just wrote about this problem last week when it comes to PFAS and the growing need to update our water treatment infrastructure.

The Cover-Up Continues & Regulations Lag

PG&E went to great lengths to cover up their misdeeds. The company was not pleased when the “Erin Brockovich” movie came out exposing the dangers of chromium-6. A spokesperson from the company tried to downplay the movie’s implications, saying “Our general response with respect to the movie is just that we recognize it’s a dramatization. It’s an entertainment vehicle.”

Companies know these substances cause harm, they know they are in the water supply, and yet we don’t fix the problem.

We have a huge regulatory gap as well. We don’t regulate it at the federal level. We have a “total chromium” drinking water regulation set at 100 parts per billion (100 ppb). This means that water systems are only required to test for chromium, which is a bit confusing since one type of chromium is a known carcinogen and one isn’t.

Only California has a regulation for hexavalent chromium, and the MCL is set at 10 ppb. Even this standard falls short of the state's own public health goal of 0.02 ppb, established by California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment.(OEHHA, 2011)

The State Water Resources Control Board clearly states that “chronic or long-term exposure to water contaminated with hexavalent chromium may result in liver toxicity, gastrointestinal tumors, and liver cancer.”

Understanding The Threat

To understand the scope of this crisis, it's important to know what we're dealing with. There are two types of chromium:

Chromium-­ 3: a naturally occurring metallic element

Chromium-­ 6: a toxic man-made version used extensively by industry

Chromium-6 is an anti-corrosive agent used by many industries such as leather tanning, electroplating, pigment production, wood preservation, and others.

The word “chromium” is derived from the Greek word chroma, which means color. Even though chromium is an odorless metallic element found in nature, the manmade version—­ hexavalent chromium—­ creates a bright green or yellow color when you see too much of it in the water.

Chromium-­6 was the industry gold standard for corrosion resistance, and it was added to paints, primers, plastics, stainless steel, and surface coatings to increase durability.

Chromium was once valued for bringing bright shininess to car bumpers and aircraft engine components. It was also used in cooling towers for office buildings and manufacturing plants throughout the country, because hexavalent chromium is one of the most efficient and cheap corrosion inhibitors available. But it’s highly toxic.

Chromium-6 was used nationwide by giant corporations such as Lockheed Martin and Boeing and found seeping into water supplies near coal ash dump sites across the country. In fact, chromium-­6 was the single most common corrosive inhibitor used in cooling towers in the United States until the 1990s.

This substance is often referred to as the “Erin Brockovich chemical,” but I assure you it was here long before me. I may have helped expose its dangers, but the real story is how this chemical came to be in every town across the country and how it has polluted our drinking water.

If I told you that a glass of water contained a tiny amount of toxic poison, would you drink it? What if I said, “Oh don’t worry, they EPA has decided that this small amount of poison is acceptable.” No! You wouldn’t risk it.

And yet, that’s what’s happening at many of our taps today.

What The Science Says

Both the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and the EPA have determined that chromium-6 compounds are known human carcinogens.

From a 2025 comprehensive review of the science:

“In the United States, it consistently ranks among the top twenty most dangerous pollutants at monitored sites.⁸ Cr(vi) is highly mobile in water and easily penetrates cell membranes of living organisms.^10,11 Once inside the cell, Cr(vi) initiates destructive processes: it causes powerful oxidative stress, directly damages DNA and proteins,^12,13 disrupts cellular metabolism and energy production,¹⁴ causing many pathologies, including mutations, cell death, and cancer.^13,15 Acute exposure to Cr(vi) can cause severe damage to internal organs – kidneys, liver, respiratory system,⁶ while chronic exposure is associated with increased risk of developing serious diseases.”

“While acute Cr(vi) poisoning is rare, chronic exposure to lower doses poses a more widespread and subtle threat, especially for workers in certain industries and populations living in environmentally compromised areas.”

Chromium-6 is found in the water of more than 260 million people served by 7,538 utilities nationwide, with particularly high levels in California and Arizona, according to EWG.

A Toxic Cocktail

Chromium-6 rarely travels alone. The new EWG report found both arsenic and nitrate impact millions throughout the country too.

Arsenic, a toxic heavy metal and known carcinogen that occurs naturally in soil, often appears with chromium-6 in drinking water. It has been detected in all 50 states, contaminating the water of 12,945 utilities serving a total of 134 million Americans.

Long-term arsenic exposure increases the risk of several types of cancer, including bladder and lung cancer.

Nitrate contamination, which comes from nitrogen in agricultural fertilizer and manure, is also widespread, detected in 49 states, affecting the tap water of 263 million Americans served by 26,644 water systems. Nitrate in water can increase the risk of cancer and birth defects, and high levels can fatally deprive infants of oxygen.

Each of these cancer-causing contaminants can be removed through similar treatment, such as ion exchange or reverse osmosis, which suggests they could be removed all at once.

Some communities are already taking action, upgrading treatment to efficiently remove several emerging contaminants. In California, the city of Chino has installed technology that treats their groundwater to simultaneously remove nitrate, chromium-6, and the rocket fuel component perchlorate.

More communities need funding and resources to make similar changes. We need a national standard, and if California can create one, then it’s possible for the rest of the country to follow suit.

Unfortunately, the industry has lied, cheated, sued, intimidated, falsified documents, and outright bullied anyone trying to protect the rights of drinking water consumers.

Speaking Up

For years, I’ve been teaching one very simple concept—Superman’s not coming. If you are waiting for someone to come clean up your water, I’m here to tell you: No one is coming to save you.

We need to understand the toxic cocktail that has become our public water supply from the continued problem of hexavalent chromium to the scope of PFAS in our drinking water, along with nitrates and arsenic—just to name a few. Water issues persist throughout our country.

The EPA isn’t going to save us, nor our politicians. We need to rally ourselves. If you want this kind of change in your community, you must raise your voice now and band together with others in your area. I’m telling you: the time is now.

I continue to use my voice and platform to bring attention to these important issues.

The core message remains. Water contamination is a widespread public health crisis requiring grassroots action and updated infrastructure investment.

Special Screening

If you’re in NYC this weekend, check out the Climate Film Festival. A screening of “Erin Brockovich” is scheduled for Friday night, along with many other inspiring movies throughout the weekend. Get the full schedule here.

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Have more ideas for how to clean up our water? Share them in the comments below!