Hinkley groundwater contamination
From 1952 to 1966, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) dumped about 370 million gallons (1,400 million litres) of chromium-tainted wastewater into unlined wastewater spreading ponds around the town of Hinkley, California, located in the Mojave Desert about 120 miles north-northeast of Los Angeles.PG&E used chromium 6, or hexavalent chromium (a cheap and efficient rust suppressor), in its compressor station for natural-gas transmission pipelines. Hexavalent-chromium compounds are genotoxic carcinogens. In 1993, legal clerk Erin Brockovich began an investigation into the health impacts of the contamination. A class-action lawsuit about the contamination was settled in 1996 for $333 million (around $612 million in 2022). In 2008, PG&E settled the last of the cases involved with the Hinkley claims.