In this case, PG&E deceived the entire town of Hinckley into believing that their water source was safe. Deception was clearly depicted throughout the film, with a particularly good example early in the film. The film describes how PG&E held a meeting with 200 people from Hinckley to explain the benefits of PG&E using chromium 3 in its plant. Chromium 3 is similar to hexavalent chromium, but its effects on the human body are quite mild in comparison. However, the deception is made clear when the film goes on to show that PG&E was not actually using chromium 3 in its plant, but was in fact using hexavalent chromium. harmful hexavalent chromium instead. As explained earlier, hexavalent chromium is extremely dangerous and harmful to humans. This deception went on for far too long, allowing the community to believe that children could safely play in pools and that all members could safely drink their tap water. It was even proven towards the end of the film that PG&E was aware of his actions as there were internal PG&E documents dating back to 1966 which described that it would be "better for everyone if the documents were not discussed..." ( Soderbergh, 2000). This company ended up losing the largest direct action lawsuit in U.S. history, and in some sense the problem was solved by the $333 million paid to the people of