Karen Silkwood and Erin Brokovich

Erin Brokovich

(February 19, 1946 – November 13, 1974)

Karen Silkwood was a scientist, who worked in a nuclear factory in Oklahoma (The Kerr- McGee plant). She was making plutonium pellets for nuclear reactor fuel rods. She died under mysterious circumstances after investigating claims of irregularities and wrongdoing at the Kerr-McGee plant ( Silkwood's body was found in her car, which had run off the road and struck a culvert. She was pronounced dead at the scene from a "classic, one-car sleeping-driver accident".)It is believed that Karen Silkwood had uncovered numerous violations of health regulations, including exposure of workers to contamination, faulty respiratory equipment and improper storage of samples. She also believed the lack of sufficient shower facilities could increase the risk of employee contamination.Before she died, she was diagnosed with chronic plutonium toxicity. Karen Silkwood was very active in several Worker's Unions and was getting ready to testify and reveal all the violations occuring at the Kerr-McGee plant. It is believed that she was killed to prevent her from testifying against the company. Kerr-McGee's management asserted that she had contaminated herself in order to paint the company in a negative light. It is theorized that her house was broken into, and the plutonium was placed in her home to further contaminate her with intent of causing her death; and at the same time, attempting to frame her for intentionally contaminating herself, so she could not pursue civil compensation from Kerr-McGee for her contamination.

Similarly, Erin Brokovich an American legal clerk and environmental activist was instrumental in constructing a case against the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) of California in 1993. The case alleged contamination of drinking water with hexavalent chromium, also known as chromium(VI), in the southern California town of Hinkley. At the center of the case was a facility called the Hinkley Compressor Station, part of a natural gas pipeline connecting to the San Francisco Bay Area and constructed in 1952. Between 1952 and 1966, PG&E used hexavalent chromium to fight corrosion in the cooling tower. The wastewater dissolved the hexavalent chromium from the cooling towers and was discharged to unlined ponds at the site. Some of the wastewater percolated into the groundwater, affecting an area near the plant approximately two miles long and nearly a mile wide. The case was settled in 1996 for US $333 million, the largest settlement ever paid in a direct action lawsuit in US history. Erin Brokovich was very active in several other lawsuits and fights for the protection of the environment and Public health. Just like Karen Silkwood, she was driven for her passion for the environment and for health and they are big Icons for environmentalists.