tonight, our conversation with erin brockovich. she is the defending a documentary about one of the biggest challenges facing the country in the 21st century, our water supply. the new film is called last call at the oasis. we are glad you have joined us for our conversation with erin brockovich, coming up right now. >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where walmart stands together with your community to make every day better.

>> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. tavis: erin brockovich is a longtime environmentalist and clean water advocate who inspired the oscar-winning film starring julia roberts. she is currently featured in a new documentary on the subject of our water crisis. it is called "last call at the oasis. >> every single state has emailed me with some sort of problem.

25,000 increase in the month, to the point where i have actually started to create a map, and what is scaring us is we still have 700 more interested in put. so we are able to start connecting those stocks to get some kind of -- there is just so many accounts of contamination. >> you have a fish kill here on the river. we have lost over a billion fish. they were burying them on the beach. >> you take a glass of water out of the tappan it smells like bees will fuel. my life is over without water. >> six of our neighbors had brain tumors than half of them died. it was like, oh my gosh, is in the water. we've got to get the kids out of here. >> all of a sudden i cannot just

talk to you about it because it makes me think of what is going on in arizona and alabama and washington and texas. because it is happening everywhere. tavis: we obviously did not plan this. i know i certainly did not. but you and i were talking when you walk on the set and you were at one of those superfund sites in this extreme heat and i was in charlotte, north carolina, for three or four days with 105 degree temperatures every day. so the timing of a conversation about a water crisis with this heat wave could not be more propitious i suspect. >> you know, sometimes, most of the time, we can take water for granted, that it's always there and especially when we are in a heat wave. that's the one thing we clearly gravitate to for every purpose, for drinking, for getting into the sprinklers, swimming, cooling off period water is

everywhere. it can be kind of daunting to look at the situation about the lack of, the overuse and pollution of our water here in the united states. we see this scenario played out in other countries and we always go there to aid and rescue when we have the same problem right here in the united states. in the film, they show the impending crisis that could be potentially coming to california. it is hard to watch, but there is hope for us. there are things we can be doing from how we use our water to the pollution of our water to creating new ways to clean that water to disposing of waste properly. that could be the game changer, if we would only wake up and become aware that this situation is really happening. tavis: we will talk about solutions a little bit later in the conversation, but since we

both live in california, this is not obviously just a california crisis, but to your word, its impending here in california. so were we up against here in california specifically? >> pollution for one of them. what people don understand is like when water gets polluted, it's an entire offer. there's a whole fascinating world that exists underneath our feet that we don't see, therefore we don't relate. i am very visual and i need to see things to understand it. when pollution hits, think about when you flush a toilet or you just randomly turn on your sink. where do you think all that water goes? it spreads out and the same thing happens when there's pollution. it spreads out. it can get carried on for miles. it can end up in municipal systems. it can end up in private wells. we have 38 million americans on well water, a large number here in california for farming use,

for agricultural use. oftentimes they don't know that the pollution is there. to the misuse of water, for everyone of us, just letting the water run in your sink, unnecessarily watering your lawn too often or outside hosing down the deck and you drop the hose and you go inside. we are going to need that for the farmers, and wells are running dry. it takes millions and millions of gallons of water to fracking one well and we are actually running wells dry all over the united states. tavis: here is a difficult question. i wonder how is that people get that message, myself included? how do we get that message about the crisis so long as every time i go to the spigot for the faucet in turn on or you flush your toilet, it works? it's almost like anything else in life. people don't really get it until they have to go through it. and that is true of everything.

how do get traction on this, as long as everybody goes to the faucet and turns it on and it works? >> i hope by doing things like for doing today, talking about it to films, to the work that i am doing going to universities and lecturing students. there is a real generation up- and-coming that is very well aware of this impending crisis. tavis: >> you think so? what is making them more aware than you or me? >> i think the stories they watch. the social world has really opened this up. i am amazed and i can tell you how hopeful i am because i see communities contacting me all day long. i get anywhere from 30,000- 40,000 e-mails a month. i have over 100,000 every month and more checking back into my site coming from 124 countries and territories.

they are reporting back to me things they see going on in their community. at the university level they are studying it, learning about pollution and fracking. they want to get into science and technology. their little minds are really anxious to create better ways to generate waste, better ways to preserve and use our water more effectively. i think because of the issues of global warming, the awareness, the social world we have become, now they can see more. they can believe more. this is not a water crisis that is possibly going to affect you and i tomorrow in the next five years. what really stunned me was just a few weeks ago. my baby in the film erin brockovich is now having a baby, my first grandbaby. i look, and i think i am going to be holding my next generation, and that is the one that could be in trouble.

sometimes you have to see the forest through the trees and realize that here in the united states there are people in parts of texas that are turning on their water and their well is dry. that is what makes it real for us. we need to have that compassion. listen, take a look history. so many things that we have said were coming, we didn't want to believe it, and they came. we need to be prepared. what is the worst that is going to happen for someone? i take it for granted that i am just going to turn on the water and it could be there, but i know more. it is to be better prepared for when that moment happens, how i could get through it. here in california, if we have a major earthquake, you know our water supplies are going to be interrupted. just coming back from the east coast, some of the storms. they prevented some people who were under boil water orders may

not have had water momentarily or had to be shut down for a day. when it hits home for you, then it becomes real. tavis: this is a broad question admittedly and i want to give you room to paint however you want to paint with regard to your answer. what are the politics on this? you have been death on the epa and i think legitimately so in a lot of ways. i am not talking about obama or mitt romney. i am talking about in washington. the debate in washington about those who believe and those who don't believe. i suspect water is the same way. those who think this is a crisis of somebody imagination or somebody is making. the same is true of social security. it's really not going to run down. the american people oftentimes don't know whether to go left or right, what to believe or not to

believe based upon the fact that our leaders in washington, the politics of this stuff is so strained. >> funny you should ask that because i went to washington for "last call at the oasis." i really thought i was going to pull my hair out. i saw that bickering and i am like i don't know how we get anything done. i am truly disappointed with the internal protection agency. this is an agency that's supposed to have oversight. we believe as people that this agency is superman is going to come to the rescue and that's the first thing that people need to do. this is a human rights issue and politics doesn't play with people that way. this is going to be all of our crisis. there are a whole lot of things it could be done. the first thing i work with communities on is to leave the politics out. here is why they can do that.

they are now affected. what they see is what they believe and have to take measures no matter what politics are going to do at this very moment. to begin to save their own health and their own family. that is what is most important to them. i am out in communities all day long and throughout the united states of america. they now see the two headed trout. they now see their water being lit on fire. they now see green water coming out of the tap. i did not grow up an era where i thought that was acceptable. i cannot believe we are getting to a society where we think that is now acceptable. these people at a community level are starting to act and leave politics aside, whether they create their own water co- op, where they get to an agency that forces a filtration systems on their well head. they are starting to mobilize and they will be the ones that will ultimately make a

difference. but the politics is absolutely frightening and i think it needs to be left out of this. this is a water issue. this is a human rights issue. it will be up to us to do something. tavis: so what is the essence of your beef with the epa. too big a question? [laughter] >> i have to mind my manners when we talk about this because it is frustrating for me. i was one of those people who felt that this agency was in place to protect us. over the past 20 years and all the communities i've been in, they are absent, and i believe potentially for a whole host of reasons. they are understaffed and overburdened. it's not that they don't have funds. let's be honest. they are flat out broke. so these agencies, when they do get there, come in and initiate for cleanup because they are just going to sue that defendant

anyway for cleanup. and because it has gotten so big so fast, they cannot even get in and clean up most of the sites we have. it is estimated between 15,000 and 30,000 superfund sites today that we are not cleaning up. i am involved in cases where the epa was involved too late. they showed up 30 years later. i just came back from minnesota and the nation's number one superfund site. nobody in the community knew. it is insanity. it is inexcusable. it's an agency that is not doing their job. they have terrible networking. they don't talk with other agencies like the center for disease control or the agency for toxic substances and disease registry. the number one thing that bothers me is they say it is not their job. so you tell me whose job it is.

we have a population of people living on top of a superfund site and you know they are ingesting it and you know that there is soil vapor underneath their homes and volatilizing into their home and you don't come back and check on their health and welfare? whose job is that? that is one thing i started doing with the help of google. we are creating what we call the peoples of reporting registry. these communities on these superfund sites can get to me and begin to report what is happening with their health. it is startling what we are starting to see. as i said earlier, drinking green water, two headed fish, frogs turning into hermaphrodites, is not acceptable. where is it we politically can get hung up, when a community in the people themselves, those with cancer, report to us.

we have 59 people and are there poor hood with glioblastoma brain tumors. no agency wants to look at because the politics gets involved. what i am concerned about is, if the agencies are going to be lax like that, just say it. that figure out a new way to run this agency. maybe we should not have this agency. maybe we better create another one that will provide that oversight so we can get information, so maybe we can help people and maybe we can clean up the water. but as long as these politics come into play, we are going nowhere. it drives me crazy. i was in leadwood, missouri, case we are involved with. we all know how dangerous lead is to children. that is common knowledge. there is a huge defendant out there, instead of dispute be disposing of their lead piles of properly, they just create

mounds all over the town, and the kids are playing in them. as we were driving down the street and watching this, we are taking photos of the children. as they waved, their hands were gray from lead underneath. what kind of generation are they going to be? i feel like i am in the third world. i really do. it is time for us to come home, and we will run to every country's aid, and right now because we don't see what's happening in missouri -- i do. we don't see what is happening down in texas. i do. we are going to have to come back home and start aiding ourselves, rebuilding our infrastructure. we have 38 million americans on well water, a system off the grid. most of them have contaminated water. we could rebuild those systems and put more science and technology to work and teach our children how to dispose of this waste. we could be cleaning up the mess

that we've made. we tell our two-year-old to clean up your room, yet we won't do it. tavis: i want to get your sense of this. jamie dimon showed up in washington a few weeks ago and we all watched on television, the way he was handled with care and with kid gloves basically, and the relationship between politicians and government and big business is well documented. as calvin coolidge once said, the business of america is business. one could argue that america in some ways was a corporation before it was even a country. that's my own diatribe. but it does raise the question. just as there's an issue to be raised around politics and money, how much of the fact that the epa is not stepping up has to do with the cozy relationship between epa and business? they are supposed to be looking out for us, but how much of this is an indictment on that relationship?

>> i think there is some, and we talk about that. .e'll call it superfund anymore we call it super failure, and politics are involved. there are some loopholes in there and once it becomes a superfund site, that's for the people now politically in between government and big corporations, somewhere it's ghana get a pass. s very concerning. it is people that run these companies. nobody is ever going to convince me that a ceo would not care of his own child was poisoned. communities and companies go hand in hand. i am out there with these communities. they want the jobs. they don't want to be poisoned though, either. somehow these companies to have the technology, the person power, the funds, it becomes a moral issue. it can do the right thing or the wrong thing. when it comes to the groundwater

contamination and the poisoning of people i see, it's a moral issue. tavis: does the film give us an indication of how long -- we talked about california and how close we are to the press of this year. but does the film give us any sense of how long we have before the supply is either gone or or people are not getting water? >> as short as 50 years. tavis: as short as 50 years? >> and it goes by quick. i had this experience with my father, my greatest mentor in my life. i was born and raised in kansas. my dad taught me that water would be a commodity in my lifetime. i think he is going to be right. water is a necessary element for any one of us to sustain life. doesn't matter who you are.

when he passed away last year, i will never forget it. i was sitting there, 88 years old, just shaking his head. i said what is wrong? he said, is here. i never thought it would come. 50 years for us to have no water potentially, that is fast. tavis: there are two questions i want to ask you before my time runs out. you mentioned your dad, and your mom was a journalist? >> she was a journalist in sociology. tavis: tell me about your parents. this kind of advocacy and energy comes from somewhere. tell me about your mom and dad. >> my mom and dad, they taught me the greatest gifts we have are our family, our health, and the right to clean water and good land. if you think about it, none of us can take it with us when we are gone. it's what we leave that going to matter. my mom and dad always taught me that lesson. they taught me the value of good

water and being outside and farming and family and health. what i see happening in this crisis is deterioration of the family. it is deterioration of our health. a breakdown about fundamental core value system that i think this country was built upon, that family was built upon, that we have moved away from. we need to get back to that or risk huge failure. my mother and father were my absolute inspiration. tavis: i read about your son and i thought about how interesting a dialectic this is. york challenging the government to do better. your son served in afghanistan protecting our freedoms in this country. does that ever strike you as being an interesting sort of interplay? >> absolutely, every single day. i am serious. i get down and i thank god that my son came home alive and so many of his friends did not. he was one of a few of his whole

squad. the rest were murdered in front of him. the war is terrible and i uphold what our men and women are willing to sacrifice and do for us. to see this happening at home breaks my heart. i am very involved in a situation called camp lejeune. abc nightline just did a special on it. they knew they had a very severe rtc and benzene water contamination, so our soldiers have come home to be poisoned on their own soil, the united states of america, and to find out that their own families have been poisoned. they have lost their children to birth defects. a lot of children at the age of 10 and 11 and 12 to leukemia. to the tens upon tens of thousands of soldiers who could lose their life from cancer due

to groundwater contamination, numbers higher than what we see in a war, is absolutely inexcusable and i think the biggest black eye that america has. we cannot allow that to happen. tavis: i doubt seriously this is your first time seeing erin brockovich on national television. if you saw the movie about her life and legacy and her work ongoing starring julia roberts and. ms. robertson won the academy award for best actress that year for playing erin brockovich. if you saw the movie, now you know it's real. i love the passion, and for people who have seen you for the first time, they get it now. diiulio was playing a real character. this is hurt, and she's fighting for the protection and preservation of clean and pure water. the new project "is called last call at the oasis."

thank you. that is our show for tonight. we will see you back here on next time on pbs. thanks for watching. as always, keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time for a conversation with -- oscar winner billy bob born on his new book. that is next time. we will see you then. >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where walmart stands together with your community to make every day better. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

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