Photos: Toxic plume in Hinkley, Calif.
Rob Gerner hopes PG&E will buy his house in Hinkley, Calif. “Tests of water samples from my wells in July came up with 3.8 parts per billion of chromium 6, which is above normal background levels,” he said. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
Lillie Stone stands in her backyard where levels of hexavalent chromium have risen over 700% over the past three years. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
Russell Burns lights up a cigarette in his car outside the Our Place bar. In 1997, PG&E paid 660 Hinkley residents $333 million to settle lawsuits alleging injuries including intestinal tumors and breast cancer from chromium-laced waste water that had seeped from the utility’s disposal ponds between 1951 and 1966, winding its way into the community’s drinking wells. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
Tom Ownes, a Hinkley resident, speaks with others at the Our Place bar, where Erin Brokovich started the case and lawsuit against PG&E. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
An empty house sits in the path of the plume of chromium-tainted groundwater north of the PG&E plant in Hinkley. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
Lillie Stone sits in the living room of her home. She and her husband live on fixed incomes and want PG&E to buy their property at a reasonable price, or pay to help them relocate. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
