An American water warrior immortalised by Hollywood has told a Water NZ industry conference that water problems are getting much worse, and communities can — and must — stand up and fight. Julia Roberts won an Oscar for her portrayal of Erin Brockovich in the 2000 film of the same name, about an unschooled single mother's dogged fight to bring the water polluter of a California town to justice. Thirty years on, Brockovich is still in the fight: "Here I am today, 63, and a grandmother of four, and the situation has not gotten any better. In fact, the situation has gotten much worse."
Brockovich said things would get worse "as we continue to assume, or believe, that some entity will just swoop down in here and correct all of these water issues, or we continue to kick the can down the line, or we continue to believe that we as an individual, right at that local level, can't stand up".
There was no shortage of threats coming down the pipe, the conference heard earlier. Among them, nitrates — primarily from dairy effluent — and the chemical focus of another Hollywood movie, Dark Waters — PFAS or "forever chemicals".
Brockovich told the audience their actions would count.