CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) RESOURCE CENTER Read More
Add To Favorites

Erin Brockovich talks toxic slime and cancer. 'Florida has a lot of water issues'

Miami Herald - 10/1/2018

Oct. 01--Erin Brockovich is back at it. In the Sunshine State.

The environmental activist, who was famously portrayed by Julia Roberts in the 2000 movie of the same name, is focusing on clean water.

On Saturday, the consultant and TV personality was at the Kingdom Gate Worship Center in Satellite Beach in Brevard County to talk about the alarming number of cancer cases in the area, where tap water recently tested at trace levels of a toxic fluorinated compound, reports Florida Today.

A Satellite Beach High School graduate Julie Glift Greenwalt was one of the first to notice at least 54 separate cases of cancer diagnosed in the past eight years in people under age 40 who either went to Satellite High or grew up around there.

On Sunday, Brockovich traveled to Stuart in Martin County to talk to a crowd in Flagler Park about harmful algae blooms in the St. Lucie River. The toxic slime is reportedly infecting this body of water, according to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection..

Brockovich was a legal clerk back in 1993, when she helped build a case claiming a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. facility was polluting drinking water wells in and around the town of Hinkley, California, with the chemical hexavalent chromium. The case was settled in 1996 with a $333 million payment by the power company.

"Florida has a lot of water issues," Brockovich told TCPalm. "But I'm so happy to see these groups of people ... coming together and making what's become a real movement."

On Monday, the 58-year-old was set to be briefed in Audubon over the algae bloom issues in Lake Okeechobee.

___

(c)2018 Miami Herald

Visit Miami Herald at www.miamiherald.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.