Can Erin Brockovich Rescue the Marines?

Brockovich has penned a fictional thriller about industrial contamination called, "Rock Bottom".

Erin Brockovich

(SALEM, Ore.) - The old Marine Corps air base at El Toro is a rotting toxic mess that Irvine politicians and businesses have tried in vain to manipulate into a park and housing community. Marines all over the country and beyond carry the El Toro blueprint in their DNA and the many deadly health issues connected to it are hereditary.

We have been reporting about this for years now, traveling over and over again from Oregon to El Toro to report and document the changes and ridiculous effort to turn an EPA Superfund site into a place for families to live and recreate.

All kinds of toxic chemicals and fuels were dumped into the groundwater here at a steady rate since the base was constructed during World War Two over a lima bean field that had once been the best of its kind in California. Of course that agricultural past ties to an era that predates our knowledge of serious and again deadly health issues, related to DDT which was used in abundance here before any aircraft-related contaminants began going down the drain and into the water tables below.

Today the base has toxic 'plumes' of chemicals like trichloroethylene (TCE) perchloroethylene (PCE) and benzene and the list goes on and on. We constantly hear from Marines who also served at this base and Salem-News.com writer Robert O'Dowd and I have a book that will be released in the near future detailing these problems at Marine Corps Air Station El Toro.

There is no name connected to the righting of wrongs in toxic environmental contamination bigger than that of Erin Brockovich. We have contacted her agency in the past trying to gain advocacy for El Toro but in reality, there is such a long list of serious similar problems in America that it is staggering.

However as FOX News reports, the woman who inspired the Oscar-winning film "Erin Brockovich" is using her name recognition to encourage others to be aware and active in their communities.

Brockovich has penned a fictional thriller about industrial contamination, "Rock Bottom", intended to educate people on industrial dangers. Brockovich, who has her own firm and consults on many investigations, says she's looking at over 700 sites in the U.S. right now that could be fraught with industrial contamination.

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Tim King: Salem-News.com Editor and Writer

Tim King is a former U.S. Marine with twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. In addition to his role as a war correspondent, this Los Angeles native serves as Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. Tim spent the winter of 2006/07 covering the war in Afghanistan, and he was in Iraq over the summer of 2008, reporting from the war while embedded with both the U.S. Army and the Marines.

Tim holds numerous awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing, including the Oregon AP Award for Spot News Photographer of the Year (2004), first place Electronic Media Award in Spot News, Las Vegas, (1998), Oregon AP Cooperation Award (1991); and several others including the 2005 Red Cross Good Neighborhood Award for reporting. Tim has several years of experience in network affiliate news TV stations, having worked as a reporter and photographer at NBC, ABC and FOX stations in Arizona, Nevada and Oregon. Serving the community in very real terms, Salem-News.com is the nation's only truly independent high traffic news Website. As News Editor, Tim among other things, is responsible for publishing the original content of 65 Salem-News.com writers. He reminds viewers that emails are easily missed and urges those trying to reach him, to please send a second email if the first goes unanswered. You can send Tim an email at this address: newsroom@salem-news.com