By Amanda Ramos, Editorial Intern, The Commonwealth

In the film Erin Brockovich, in an effort to appease the frustrated plaintiffs in Hinkley who question the distribution of an out of court settlement, the character of Ed Masry refers to the 1978 Love Canal controversy and how, almost twenty years later, the victims are still waiting for their money. Erin Brockovich is set in 1996, so the movie cannot allude to the 1998 outcome of the Love Canal case, but there are a number of similarities between Hinkley and the toxic dump disaster that became synonymous with harmful chemical exposures and their adverse human health effects.

The neighborhood of Love Canal in Niagara Falls, New York, was named after William Love who, in 1896, began digging a canal between Lakes Ontario and Erie to serve as a water power conduit. The project was abandoned, but in 1942 the Hooker Chemical Corporation put it to use as a waste ground for the chemical by-products of its manufacturing process. Over the next 11 years, Hooker dumped over 20,000 tons of chemicals into Love Canal: a melting pot of dioxin, benzene, pesticides and acids, many of which were carcinogenic (cancer-causing) or teratogenic (causing birth defects).

Warned in 1945 by an internal memo from an engineer stating that Love Canal is "a quagmire, which will be a potential source of lawsuits," Hooker nevertheless failed to stop dumping until 1952. The landfill was sealed with clay and sold to the Niagara Falls School Board in 1953 for one dollar.

In the 1960s and 1970s, people living adjacent to the canal increasingly complained of strange odors and residues in their homes; there were also numerous reports of chemical burns and mysterious ailments from the children who attended 99th Street School.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, contaminated groundwater had risen to the surface and migrated into creeks and sewers, possibly explaining the high rates of miscarriage, birth defects, and diseases of the liver and kidneys (where chemicals concentrate for the organs to detoxify) in the Love Canal area. One resident, who could well have been an inspiration for Erin Brockovich with her grassroots-style activism, educated herself on the hazards of environmental pollution and organized a petition to close the 99th Street School.

Lois Marie Gibbs’ demands for a government investigation, coupled with intense media interest, ultimately forced President Carter to issue the first of two environmental evacuation orders for the neighborhood in 1978, which eventually relocated more than 1,500 families out of the area. The New York State Department of Health, declaring an emergency, discovered unsafe levels of chemicals in 239 homes and ordered that they be demolished.

The disaster led Congress to enact the Superfund law in 1980, establishing a clean-up program for toxic waste sites around the country and requiring companies dumping the waste to finance clean-up costs. Although the government cleared up the Love Canal site, the Federal District Court in Buffalo ruled that Occidental Chemical Corporation, Hooker’s successor, was the "responsible party" under the new law.

In December 1995, the Justice Department and the EPA announced that Occidental would reimburse the government $129 million. Of this settlement however, only $6.75 million went to the 899 medical victims of Love Canal, and of that, $2.25 million was subtracted for attorneys’ fees. The awards ranged from $63 to $133,000, sometimes barely enough to pay for a funeral. As in the Hinkley case, individual awards were based on three factors: length of residency, location of residence, and possible exposure to chemicals. When questioned about the award distribution, State Supreme Court Justice Vincent E. Doyle explained that the liability fund was established under a confidentiality agreement.

Critics of Erin Brockovich say that Hinkley residents were likewise disgruntled about their settlement amounts – a complaint skimmed over in the movie. Since Ed Masry "sold out" to a private arbitration, there is no public record of the case. It is extremely difficult to prove that toxic waste is the only cause of a cluster of health problems, yet the plaintiffs in Hinkley and in Love Canal did not even get their day in court.

On the other hand, if not for the courage of people like Brockovich and Gibbs, who challenge the government to redress the environmental assaults on our communities, the authorities and corporations might continue to maintain that there is nothing harmful about the toxins in our water and soil. Since the movie, chromium 6 has become a "high profile" problem around the state of California, prompting tougher testing standards with the discovery that chromium levels are actually higher than expected. As blue collar communities acting against powerful forces to protect public health, Hinkley and Love Canal remind America that every individual has a responsibility to play in the battle against pollution – and holding the polluters accountable.