Remember Erin Brockovich? The name, the movie, the vibe? Turns out, while most of us were just getting over Y2K, she was busy turning a $333 million settlement against PG&E for poisoning Hinkley, California's water. That was in 1996, and yes, she's still at it.
Twenty-six years later, Brockovich hasn't exactly retired to a quiet life of artisanal pickle-making. Instead, she's become a permanent fixture in the trenches of environmental activism, leading lawsuit after lawsuit against polluters from Missouri to New York.
Her latest stop? Wayne County, West Virginia, where thousands of gallons of oil decided to make friends with a major drinking water source. Brockovich, ever the direct communicator, took to social media: "I am seeing your messages and hearing your concerns. What you’re dealing with is serious, and your voices matter." Because apparently, that's where we are now — needing an environmental superhero to remind corporations that clean water is, in fact, a basic human right.
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Start Your News DetoxBrockovich has always had a knack for championing the working class and low-income families, often against corporate giants that seem to view environmental regulations as mere suggestions. She even wrote a book in 2010 with the wonderfully unsubtle title, Superman’s Not Coming: Our National Water Crisis and What We the People Can Do About It.
She recently told People magazine, with her characteristic bluntness, "I want us to understand the importance of water. I don’t know that we understand the tipping point that we’re at, and what we can do in our own towns to empower ourselves so we have safer water." It’s less a plea and more a rallying cry.
Her philosophy remains refreshingly simple: informed people take action. "The hope is when people know better, they do better and they rise up. We can turn that tide. I'm going to believe that until the day I die." Which, if you think about it, is both incredibly optimistic and a little bit of a dare. Someone should probably tell the polluters.
