Activist explains dangers of toxic mold

Thursday, March 8, 2001 By Andrew LePage, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.

Erin Brockovich, the real-life inspiration of a movie nominated for five Academy awards, is accustomed to playing the role of champion for toxic exposure victims.

But now the environmental crusader says she's a victim herself. She says she suffers from respiratory ailments, facial rashes, chronic headaches, sinus infections and other health woes that have caused her to miss work and lucrative speaking engagements for more than a year.

Brockovich, 39, told a state Senate health committee in Sacramento Wednesday that what's making her ill is the very thing that a growing number of people across the capital region, state and country are blaming for symptoms ranging from hair loss and vertigo to weakened immune systems and brain damage. The culprit, they all say, is mold, sometimes referred to as "toxic mold," in their homes, schools or workplaces.

"I'm not here today because I'm looking for a new cause. I wasn't looking for mold — mold found me," Brockovich told the committee, attended by just two of the 11 senators who are members. They were well outnumbered by an audience of about 200.

"You lose your house and your health," Brockovich said of mold contamination, which she charges is the result of shoddy construction, leading to water leaks, in her 12-year-old, 5,200-square-foot Agoura Hills home.

"I've waited my whole life to own a home. Now I'm stuck, I can't sell it because I have to disclose (the mold) and I don't have the money to fix it," she said.

She added that her husband and three children also have suffered from various adverse health effects that she attributes to the mold.

Brockovich, who said she bought the $1 million house in summer 1997 but didn't suffer severe symptoms until late 1999, was among a dozen people, including medical experts and real estate industry lobbyists, who spoke at the Senate's informational hearing. The committee gathered testimony for consideration of three mold-related bills introduced this year, including one that could lead to the nation's first statewide standards for mold cleanup and establishing permissible levels of exposure.

Though Brockovich repeatedly stressed Wednesday that she's not on a mold crusade, she said later in an interview with The Bee that that could change.

"Will it become my cause down the road? Well, it hit pretty close to home," she said of her own experience.

Moreover, she said she enjoys being "an ambassador for other people whose voices might not be heard."

Basking in national fame since the release of the movie bearing her name a year ago, Brockovich has for many become a larger-than-life environmental hero.

Julia Roberts played Brockovich in the film and is up for an Academy Award for best actress.

The film culminates in Pacific Gas & Electric's real-life $333 million settlement of a lawsuit that the law firm Brockovich works for brought against the utility on behalf of hundreds of residents of a small Southern California desert town.

Brockovich, who was a $1,200-a-month records clerk at the time, eventually got a $2 million "bonus" from her employer, attorney Ed Masry, for her instrumental role in generating the initial lawsuit and settlement. The suit alleged PG&E was responsible for chromium 6 contamination of the town of Hinkley's ground water.

But despite the multimillion-dollar bonus, Brockovich said she hasn't been on easy street.

She said that after taxes, her $2 million bonus amounted to less than $1 million. Of that amount, $250,000 was used for a down payment on the dream home she shares with her husband of two years, actor Eric Ellis, and her three children: Matthew, 17; Katie, 16; and Elizabeth, 9.

An additional $250,000 was spent on home decorations and upgrades and $250,000 on mold-related water intrusion repairs and mold remediation work.

Adding to her financial burdens in the past couple of years, she said, is the estimated $250,000 she's spent on the drug rehabilitation and related out-of-state boarding schools for her two oldest children.

Of that $2 million bonus, she says "what I have left — $80,000 — I just spent redoing my ... roof!" Brockovich is still head of environmental research at the law firm of Masry and Vititoe in Westlake Village, but since the release of the movie last year she's spent most of her time as a national inspirational speaker.

Brockovich said she earns up to $22,000 per event and she's on pace for a six-figure annual income.

Having worked with motivational speaker Anthony Robbins, she said, she now talks to all kinds of groups about "values, not telling lies, preservation of health," among other topics.

In addition, she hinted that a book deal, the telling of her life story, might be imminent.

The movie, after all, only represents but a sliver of her life during the early and mid-1990s.

Like many who say they're suffering from mold in the absence of any state or federal laws on the problem, Brockovich says she's turned to the courts for relief.

In a personal injury/construction defect complaint filed last fall, she charged the former owner of her home, Robert Selleck, brother of actor Tom Selleck, and the home's builder each played a role in causing water intrusion that led to mold formation.

Brockovich alleges Selleck, who also did work on the home, also neglected to disclose moisture and mold problems when he sold the home.

Selleck's attorney, Bill Slaughter in Ventura, said his client, a Southern California real estate developer, "flatly denies" Brockovich's allegations.

"He was unaware of any water intrusion related problems."

Brockovich's case illustrates how complex, time-consuming and expensive such lawsuits can be to litigate. Attorneys for the two defendants, Selleck and the home's builder, have to inspect her house, pour over Brockovich's health records, call in a host of expert witnesses and subject Brockovich to an independent medical evaluation.

For her part, Brockovich said she is prepared to press her case for as long as she needs to.

"I'm not just going to roll over because I'm afraid of Robert Selleck or (the home's builder)," she said. "I'm going to stand up to these developers."

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