If you’ve seen the movie, you know the broad strokes. But the real story of Hinkley, California’s groundwater contamination is more complicated, more tragic, and more relevant to current water quality debates than most people realize. Decades after the headline-grabbing settlement, the contamination plume still hasn’t been fully remediated — and the town itself has largely disappeared.
What Happened
From 1952 to 1966, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) operated a compressor station near the small desert community of Hinkley, about 120 miles north-northeast of Los Angeles in the Mojave Desert. The station was part of PG&E’s trans-California natural gas transmission system — a massive network of pipelines serving over 4 million customers.
At the Hinkley station, PG&E used hexavalent chromium (chromium-6) as a rust inhibitor in cooling towers. It’s cheap, effective, and profoundly toxic. Hexavalent chromium compounds are classified as genotoxic carcinogens — they damage DNA and cause cancer.
The contaminated wastewater was dumped into unlined spreading ponds adjacent to the station. Over 14 years, approximately 370 million gallons of chromium-tainted water soaked directly into the ground and migrated into the local aquifer. PG&E didn’t inform the local water board about the contamination until December 1987 — more than two decades after the dumping stopped.
The Erin Brockovich Case
In 1993, Erin Brockovich, a legal clerk working for attorney Edward Masry, began investigating an apparent cluster of illnesses among Hinkley residents. What she uncovered connected those health problems to the hexavalent chromium in the groundwater.
The resulting class action lawsuit — Anderson et al. v. Pacific Gas and Electric — was filed in San Bernardino County Superior Court. After arbitration for the first 40 plaintiffs resulted in roughly $120 million in damages, PG&E reassessed its position and decided to settle the entire case. In 1996, the company agreed to pay $333 million — at the time, the largest class action settlement in U.S. history, covering more than 600 plaintiffs.
PG&E settled the final Hinkley-related cases in 2008.
What’s Left of Hinkley
The settlement money didn’t save the town. PG&E began buying up properties near the contamination plume, and residents steadily left. By 2016, The New York Times described Hinkley as having slowly become a ghost town. The school closed. Businesses shuttered. What was once a small but functioning desert community essentially ceased to exist.
The contamination plume, meanwhile, has proven stubbornly difficult to clean up. PG&E has been required to conduct ongoing remediation, including groundwater extraction and treatment. But chromium-6 is persistent in desert aquifer conditions, and the plume extended across a wide area beneath the desert floor.
Why Chromium-6 Matters Beyond Hinkley
Hexavalent chromium isn’t just a Hinkley problem. It occurs naturally in some geological formations and is used in industrial processes across the country. The EPA’s current federal drinking water standard covers total chromium at 100 parts per billion, but doesn’t have a separate standard specifically for the hexavalent form — which is far more toxic than trivalent chromium (chromium-3).
California set its own chromium-6 standard at 10 ppb in 2014, though it was later withdrawn due to a legal challenge over the economic feasibility analysis. The state has been working on a revised standard, but as of 2026, the regulatory picture remains in flux.
The Environmental Working Group’s tap water database has identified chromium-6 in the drinking water of thousands of communities across the United States, often at levels that some scientists consider harmful even if they’re below the federal total chromium limit.
What Hinkley Residents and Neighbors Should Know
If you live in the Hinkley area or elsewhere in the Mojave Desert region where private wells tap into local aquifers, water testing is essential:
- Test for total chromium and hexavalent chromium specifically. Standard water panels don’t always break out chromium-6 separately. Ask the lab to test for it.
- Know your well depth and aquifer. Shallow wells near industrial sites or natural chromium-bearing geology are at higher risk.
- Consider reverse osmosis. RO systems are effective at removing hexavalent chromium from drinking water. Whole-house systems provide comprehensive protection.
- Check for other desert contaminants. Arsenic, uranium, and fluoride are also naturally elevated in many Mojave Desert groundwater sources.
If you’re concerned about your water quality, a certified water treatment professional can test your water and advise on solutions specific to your area’s geology and contamination risks.
Lessons From Hinkley
Hinkley’s story is a cautionary tale about corporate accountability, regulatory delay, and the limits of legal settlements. The residents got their money — or some of it, after legal fees — but they lost their community. The groundwater still isn’t clean. And the broader regulatory failure around chromium-6 means that millions of Americans may be drinking water with elevated levels of a known carcinogen without any federal standard specifically addressing it.
The contamination happened between 1952 and 1966. The company didn’t disclose it until 1987. The lawsuit settled in 1996. The town is essentially gone. And the cleanup continues. That timeline tells you everything you need to know about how slowly environmental contamination gets addressed in this country.
Related Reading
- Bakersfield, CA Water Quality: Oil, Agriculture, and TCP — Another Central California community dealing with industrial contamination
- Coachella Valley, CA Water Quality: Chromium and Nitrate — Chromium and nitrate issues in Southern California desert communities
- Fresno Water Quality: Nitrate and 1,2,3-TCP — Agricultural contamination in California’s Central Valley
- Riverside, CA Water Quality: Perchlorate and PFAS — Industrial contaminants in Southern California groundwater
