By SUZANNE MARINO
Staff Writer

GALLOWAY TOWNSHIP – Erin Brockovich’s passion for championing the underdog and the environment were front and center Tuesday night when she packed the Stockton Performing Arts Center.

Brockovich, the guest speaker as part of Stockton’s lecture series, was the subject of the 2000 movie “Erin Brockovich,” which chronicled her dogged pursuit of the Pacific Gas & Electric Company.

She said the movie will stand the test of time, and that even 100 years from now when someone sits down to watch it, they will still get it. They will understand the message that determination and getting involved allows each of us to help create change.

Brockovich was a file clerk in the law office of Ed Masry and Jim Vititoe in 1991 when she read some files of clients from Hinckley, Calif. that piqued her interest. Many interviews and visits later, she found a community that was sick from toxic hexavalent chromium that was leaking into their groundwater from a faulty compressor at a nearby PG&E plant.

Residents were getting sick and frogs in a local pond had died, yet residents were continually told the chemical was not harmful.

“This community was dying,” Brockovich explained.

It took several years before Masry and Brockovich prevailed and won their tort claim against PG&E on behalf of the 664 residents of Hinckley. The settlement was $333 million.

That victory was forever preserved in the film directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Julia Roberts, but Brockovich brought the crowd up to speed on the people of Hinckley since that time. She also said that pursuing the giant corporations who are creating hazardous conditions like the one in Hinckley have become the driving force behind the law firm.

But her message was not just about being a corporate dragon slayer, but rather that each person has the ability to be her own dragon slayer – to go out, take a stand, and make a difference.

“You don’t have to win every battle to win the war,” she said. “In fact, the best battle might be the one where you are bloodied and beat up, but you kept fighting. All of us are winners for having the courage to put ourselves out there.” 

She spoke of “the continuum of self-improvement” and doing the right thing, and said that morality is an invaluable tool that allows people to stand up for what they believe in and make a difference.

After her presentation people lined up with questions about the environment, and she took the time to explain what she learned about herself and how so many other people’s efforts helped to make large companies like PG&E more environmentally responsible.