Hinkley Ca

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. will pay $20 million to settle the last in a series of lawsuits that contended it was responsible for poisoning water in the Mojave Desert town of Hinkley, as depicted in the movie "Erin Brockovich." The agreement finalized last week in Los Angeles involved claims that 104 people were exposed to water that contained chromium 6, a possible carcinogen. The settlement was the latest involving a series of suits that contended PG&E contaminants sickened hundreds of people in Kings, Riverside and San Bernardino counties from the 1950s through the mid-1980s.

The San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted unanimously in favor of a proposed sewage sludge composting plant that would be built eight miles outside the high desert town of Hinkley, despite strong objections from residents worried about potential health hazards. "I think this will end up being the best project possible under the circumstances," said Board Chairman Paul Biane. The town was made famous by activist Erin Brockovich, who helped force Pacific Gas & Electric Co.

Environmentalists and high-desert residents trying to stop an open-air sewage sludge composting plant from being built near Hinkley filed a lawsuit Thursday against San Bernardino County, alleging that it violated state environmental laws in approving the facility. In February, the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously in favor of the project despite strong objections by residents worried about potential health hazards.

Ten years after activist Erin Brockovich swept through this high-desert town and helped force Pacific Gas & Electric Co. to pay a multimillion-dollar settlement for allegedly polluting the town's groundwater, residents say they're facing another serious health threat.

At the time, Leon Park didn't think much about the signs the size of index cards that said something about contaminated water being sprayed on alfalfa across from his home. Park could even see the distant Pacific Gas & Electric Co. plant--the one he'd read about years back, that made all that poison chromium that got in the water. That was the story made into the movie, "Erin Brockovich," that won Julia Roberts her Oscar.