I'm having trouble finding evidence that a statistically significant larger number of people died in Hinkley at any time, compared to the population as a whole. If that's the case, then there wasn't a problem in the first place.

Let's assume I agree with you. Are you stating that the movie EB (and the woman Erin Brockovich) was responsible for making Hexavalent Chromium 6 the fall guy and that there was nothing that happened in Hinkley to the very tiny population of 2k (or less) people?

Hard to agree to those with high confidence; the first is that I am unaware of any actual statistically significant health problems in Hinkley. I've researched this a bit, and a lot of the reported health problems are consistent with base rates, not elevated rates. U Note that news articles written by nonscientific journalists make basic errors when it comes to medicine, and often use scary sounding terms like "cancer cluster" to refer to naturally occurring, normal rates of death that are higher than surrounding areas, but not statistically significantly higher. The literature around C-VI is unfortunately hard to parse, because the area has attracted cranks.

If there is no statistically significantly higher rate of death due to diseases which could have been caused by C-VI that was drunk or eaten by residents, then I would pretty much stop there; my current belief is this is the case.

Now, if there was such a higher rate (which IIUC has never been established), and those rates were highly consistent with C-VI toxicity, and C-VI in consumed form was toxic, then I think you'd be on to something.

I think it was actually a mistake by EB herself, combined with PG&E's legal ineptitude, that led to the situation we are in. The movie just amplified the problem.

Note that I live near a few superfund sites where irresponsible local industry (thanks Intel and Fairchild!) caused leakage of TCE into the groundwater, which then plumed, and is causing a very expensive long-term cleanup. TCE groundwater contamination is much more concerning, with huge amounts of high quality scientific evidence clearly supporting the danger, and it's right next to an extremely highly populated area (San Jose). So it's not like I'm some sort of industry cancer-denier; I just think this is a situation where people came up with a compelling narrative that was wrong, and it got popular.

  Note that I live near a few superfund sites where irresponsible local industry (thanks Intel and Fairchild!)

Have you ever been to Sharks Ice (10th and Alma)?

That paved-over lot across the street is the former Lorentz Barrel and Drum Superfund site.

That is a non-scientific thing to say in response to what I said.also it's not specifically very clear to me that there is a much higher death rate there than the general population that can't be explained by things like socioeconomic status which are almost always the most powerful cause of these kinds of problems.

Scientifically speaking do cigarettes cause cancer?

It may not be scientifically clear because you and other scientists and lay-people do not have access to the PG&E maintenance records that indicate they were pumping large amounts of Chromium 6 into the water table (drinking water). If it was not an issue, then why did they settle and buy out all the properties?

the case for inhaled tobacco smoke causing cancer is undisputed in the scientific field. Not only associational, it's causal (IE, we can explain precisely how it works with full generalizable predictive ability). That's true also for C-VI in occupational situations where individuals are exposed to large amounts of inhaled material, but that is also associational, not causal. The reason PG&e did what they did is because it was cheaper to settle and pay off and move on.

In short, there is little to no convincing evidence that residents in Hinckley were harmed by PG&E's actions.

I like you.