You likely know Erin Brockovich鈥檚 name because of the eponymous 2000 about her work in the early nineties uncovering Pacific Gas and Electric鈥檚 illegal discharge of the highly toxic chemical hexavalent chromium in the water of Hinkley, California. Julia Roberts played Brockovich听and memorably portrayed the young legal assistant鈥檚 dogged pursuit of details, a trait that听ultimately resulted in a听$333 million settlement from the power company, the largest direct-action settlement in history. In the wake of the film, Roberts won an Academy Award for best actress, and Brockovich鈥檚 name became a verb:听to Erin Brockovich someone was to fully, mercilessly expose them as a bad guy.听
Now 60 years old, Brockovich is a full-time environmental advocate, and in the nearly three decades since the Hinkley case, she says things have gotten worse. No one is keeping tabs on a slew of , like 听(PFAS) and neonics; the government agencies that were supposed to regulate pollution have ;听and environmental laws enacted in the 1970s haven鈥檛 stood up to time and technology. Plus, climate change aggravates any kind of water stress.听
Once she became a Technicolor touch point for exposing pollution, Brockovich started hearing from strangers of all stripes about their personal experiences: water coming out of the faucet flammable and brown,听a teenage friend group听riddled by cancer,听children who had never had a drink from a tap because their city鈥檚 water source was so toxic. Those stories are the backbone of her new book, , a readable mashup of self-help听motivation and the science behind how pollutants move through water and impact human health.
We are living in a hyper-toxic time and no one, Brockovich says, is looking at the big picture of water pollution. Our infrastructure is crumbling and underfunded, the political system favors lobbyists, and the American industrial complex has been conditioned to ask for forgiveness rather than permission when it comes to polluting. And you can鈥檛 expect Erin Brockovich to come in and Erin Brockovich for you, so the onus is on individuals to band together and use the levers they can reach to watchdog and regulate pollution.
Brockovich says she wants the book to give people a pathway toward changing local government, which she sees as the most effective way to address a systemic problem that extends to the federal level.
鈥淚 think people are looking for permission, but what they really need is support,鈥� she told me听when I asked her why it felt important to write a book. 鈥淚 go into these communities, and people say, 鈥極h, the EPA is coming in, they鈥檒l get it sorted out.鈥� And I have to say, 鈥業 hate to tell you, but superman isn鈥檛 coming, and here鈥檚 what you can do.鈥欌€� She鈥檚 been working on the book for years, but this summer, when public health and social justice are both at the forefront, her opinions听about accountability and local political change feel听particularly timely.听
Much of Superman鈥檚 Not Coming听is grim, because water pollution is deadly, sneaky, and prevalent in vulnerable areas like California鈥檚 Central Valley or Flint, Michigan, which have still other high-risk health factors, like air pollution听and a lack of healthy food options. But Brockovich鈥檚 point is that it鈥檚 possible to change all that. She outlines cases where community organizers鈥攐ften mothers worried about their sick children鈥攈ave incited change. In Hannibal, Missouri, a group of local women fought to keep chloramines (cheap disinfectants听that听are linked to rashes, respiratory issues, and cancer)听out of the city鈥檚 drinking water, taking听over city council along the way. Residents of Tonganoxie, Kansas, united听to prevent construction of a Tyson Foods chicken processing plant, which would听dump听waste into their water.听Brockovich outlines how, , Tyson was the second-biggest waterway polluter in the country from 2010 to 2014, just ahead of the Department of Defense, and many of the pollutants it听releases aren鈥檛 regulated or measured. In both of those cases, and the rest of the stories she outlines, if locals hadn鈥檛 lobbied, pollutants would have spread through the rivers and water pipes largely unnoticed until it was much too late. 鈥淐hemistry and physics say we can cut back on chemicals, but we have to really change human behavior,鈥� Brockovich says. 鈥淚 think that, as a society, we鈥檝e been lulled to sleep.鈥�
It鈥檚 not just a small-town issue either; less听than 1听percent of chemicals on the market have been fully tested for human health, and their impacts show up all over. After the movie, when Brockovich began getting calls from other communities about suspected toxins and corresponding issues, each听time she heard about听five people with similar disease patterns, she put a red dot on a map. Today听most of the map is speckled red, with tens of thousands of dots. 鈥淭his has been a system-wide failure over decades,鈥� she says. 鈥淲e feel out of control.鈥� She says that after watching Pacific Gas and Electric听cut corners and try to cover up spills and plumes, she鈥檚 started to notice negligence patterns, and听there鈥檚 no national听database for those toxic hot spots.听
鈥淲e put the chemical in the water system and then try to deal with it when we find out there鈥檚 a problem,鈥� she says. 鈥淭hat is ass-backward. We鈥檙e relying on old, antiquated policies and ideas that we put into place years ago.鈥�
Brockovich is a vocal, no-nonsense writer鈥擱oberts might even have downplayed her fire in the movie鈥攁nd the book is most interesting and relevant when she鈥檚 focused and mad. The tales听she tells show what we鈥檙e up against when it comes to clean water. But now, when it feels like irrecoverable environmental issues are ever present, they also demonstrate听where change has happened and how addressing water issues at the source can make a big difference all the way down the chain.
鈥淲e鈥檙e a land of laws, and we need major reform in some of our environmental laws,鈥� she says. 鈥淲e鈥檙e not asking you to wipe out the Constitution, we鈥檙e asking for reform on an issue that鈥檚 impacting all of us.鈥�