Erin begins digging into the particulars of the case and soon finds evidence that the groundwater in Hinkley is contaminated with dangerous hexavalent chromium, but PG&E is telling Hinkley residents that they use a safer form of chromium in their cooling ponds. She persuades Ed to allow her further research, and wins the trust of many Hinkley residents. She finds many other cases of tumors and other medical problems in Hinkley. Everyone has been treated by PG&E's doctors and thinks the cluster of cases is just a coincidence, unrelated to the "safe" chromium.
Eventually a man approaches her and says that he was tasked with destroying documents at PG&E, but he had noticed the medical conditions plaguing the workers who worked in the unlined ponds, and kept the documents instead. Now he gives them to her. One is a 1966 memo that ties a conversation of a corporate executive in the San Francisco PG&E headquarters to the Hinkley station: it proves that the corporate headquarters knew the water was contaminated with hexavalent chromium, did nothing about it, and advised the Hinkley station to keep it a secret from the neighborhood watch more
No comments:
Post a Comment