Environmental activist Erin Brockovich is in town this week. She’s here to talk about GenX, and has brought a film crew of 15 with her to document her efforts. Last night, she spoke at UNCW’s Lumina Theater. The forum was short on science, and long on cheerleading.
Wednesday’s night’s discussion for a near-capacity crowd was mostly motivational, as Erin Brockovich encouraged those in attendance to fight the good fight.
After Brockovich and her partner, a self-described water specialist Robert Bowcock, spent 30 minutes talking about themselves, they got to business. Aim was taken at local leaders who didn’t attend the forum.
“I’ve said this before. Communities can handle the truth, be transparent with them, what they can’t handle is a cover-up, lack of transparency and a lie.” (applause) “I don’t know if they were busy but I would have really enjoyed meeting them.”
She told the crowd that a tremendous amount of work must be done.
“It will take every one of us to keep that moral compass in check, and keep pushing forward, and I will say this. We can do this, we can clean this, we do have the solutions, and I’m going to die trying."
On Thursday morning Brockovich and Bowcock held a meeting with city and county officials, which was poorly attended. County Commissioner Skip Watkins, and Cape Fear River Keeper Kemp Burdette were on hand, as was a representative of Senator Michael Lee.
The environmental duo skipped the scheduled public session afterwards, leaving two citizens and three media members to ask questions of event organizer Beth Markesino, of the Stop GenX in our Water Facebook group.