Posts Tagged ‘ Gas Explosion ’

Do the Residents of San Bruno need Erin Brockovich?

September 17th, 2010. By LucyC

We all read with horror the accounts of the massive San Bruno explosion on September 9th that rocked an entire California suburb, killed four people (at last count), vaporized 38 homes, damaged a further 120 and pretty much laid waste to the surrounding 15 acres of land. Residents were ordered to evacuate, many lucky to have escaped with their lives. 

The explosion took place at dinner time, 6:24 pm, on a Thursday evening. It was caused by a rupture in a natural gas line that ran underneath the community. According to reports, the residents had complained to the utility company that they had smelt gas prior to the explosion—days prior in some cases. 

You may be interested to know that the utility company that owns the gas pipeline is none other than Pacific Gas and Electric, or PG&E. Ringing any bells? Remember Erin Brockovich? She took PG&E on over the deadly toxic waste called hexavalent chromium that the company was illegally dumping and which, in turn, was essentially poisoning residents in an area of southern California. People were dying of cancer, in fact. Brockovich, immortalized by Julia Roberts in the blockbuster movie of the same name, discovered that PG&E was trying to buy land that was contaminated by hexavalent chromium. To make a long story short—Brockovich and the people she represented won the day—but it took some doing. 

Now, to be clear, I’m not saying that the San Bruno explosion was caused by some kind of oversight, deliberate or otherwise, by PG&E, but if the company had received reports Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Erin Brockovich, Gas Explosion, PG&E, San Bruno
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