Hinkley, California: What Happened After Erin Brockovich?

Most of us remember the movie Erin Brockovich. Julia Roberts played the woman who helped uncover a terrible truth about contaminated drinking water in a small California desert community. It was a story that made people angry, made people think, and showed what could happen when ordinary families stood up to a powerful company.

But Breezie and I had a question. What does Hinkley look like today, all these years after the movie?

So we climbed into Willy Bear, our red Jeep, and went to see for ourselves.

A Town With a Story to Tell

Hinkley sits out in California's Mojave Desert, not far from Barstow. It's the kind of place where the roads stretch out beneath an enormous sky, and the desert seems to go on forever.

As we drove through town, we passed quiet roads, abandoned buildings, old homes, trailers, and pieces of people's lives left behind. Some places looked as though they had been sitting untouched for years.

One sight in particular stayed with me. Out in the desert sat an old, battered reclining chair. There was something about seeing it sitting there, all alone, that made me wonder about the people who once called this area home.

Who sat in a chair like that after a long day? What were their hopes? Where did life take them?

Of course, we don't know the story behind that particular chair. But it was a powerful reminder that every community is made up of individual lives, not just names and numbers.

What Happened Here?

The trouble in Hinkley began long before Hollywood came calling.

For decades, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, better known as PG&E, operated a natural gas compressor station in the area. The company used a chemical containing hexavalent chromium to help prevent corrosion in its cooling equipment.

Wastewater containing that chemical was discharged into unlined ponds, allowing contamination to reach the groundwater.

That mattered enormously in a desert community where families depended on wells for their water.

Eventually, residents learned what had happened, and Erin Brockovich, working with attorney Ed Masry's law firm, helped bring their concerns into the public eye.

In 1996, hundreds of Hinkley residents reached a $333 million settlement with PG&E. It was an extraordinary outcome, and the story later became the basis for the 2000 movie starring Julia Roberts.

But a settlement and a Hollywood ending aren't necessarily the same thing as the end of a community's troubles.

Driving Through Hinkley Today

During our visit, Breezie and I explored the roads around Hinkley, including the area near the PG&E compressor station.

We also passed the community center, drove through the area around a Baptist church, and came across an old elevated water tank standing against the desert sky.

That tank was quite a sight. We don't know what it was originally used for, and there's no reason to assume it had anything to do with the contamination. It was simply one more interesting piece of the landscape we encountered.

The PG&E facility was especially sobering to see. Here was the place connected to a story that millions of people had watched on movie screens, except this time we weren't watching actors. We were standing in the actual community.

We weren't there to pretend we knew the people who lived in those homes or why any particular building stood empty. We were there to look, listen, learn a little history, and share what we saw.

The Part the Movie Couldn't Show

One of the hardest things about Hinkley's story is that the problems didn't simply disappear when the movie credits rolled.

Groundwater cleanup has continued for decades. Over the years, concerns about contamination, property values, and the future of the community have remained part of life in Hinkley.

And while there are still people who call Hinkley home, the community has experienced enormous changes.

Driving past those empty places, I kept thinking about how easy it is to watch a movie, feel good when the little guy wins, and then move on with our lives.

But the people who actually lived through the story couldn't just turn off the television.

They had homes, neighbors, memories, and futures tied to this little patch of desert.

More Than a Movie

Breezie and I came to Hinkley because we were curious about what had happened after Erin Brockovich.

We left with a lot more to think about.

Our video takes you along on that drive, past the places we visited and the things that caught our attention. There's no Hollywood production here, just two people in a red Jeep, looking at a real place with a history that deserves to be remembered.

And maybe that's what stayed with me most.

A movie can tell a powerful story in a couple of hours. But real life keeps going long after the screen goes dark.

Hinkley is proof of that.