Hollywood has built Aaron Brockovich into a maverick champion of the victims of corporate

negligence since she exploded onto the scene in 1987 with a $333 million dollar judgment

against a utility company for allegedly poisoning its customers.

But alternate views exist too, painting her as a greedy opportunist who works with ambulance

chasing lawyers to use shoddy science to win vast sums from wealthy utilities.

The Aaron Brockovich case is coming right up, UnSkeptoid.

You're listening to Skeptoid.

I'm Brian Dunning from Skeptoid.com.

Henkley, the Aaron Brockovich case.

In the year 2000, the movie Aaron Brockovich told the world the true story of a heroic whistleblower

in the person of a humble paralegal who successfully challenged an evil mega corporation that had

been thoughtlessly poisoning the residents of a small California town for many years.

The real life Aaron Brockovich used that seminal victory as a springboard to a career

as a high profile media personality and consumer advocate.

Today we're going to take a look at the controversial case that made her famous, as you may have

heard that its underlying science has been either debunked or confirmed.

As in so many stories, the truth is often not so simple.

Henkley, California probably wouldn't exist at all if it weren't for the nearby city

of Barstow, which itself probably wouldn't exist but for the intersection of railroads

and highways.

It is far from anywhere in the stark and inhospitable Mojave Desert, and when a few roads and railways

first popped up to serve its nation and short-lived mining industry, those corridors soon became

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