Title: Parts per Million: The Poisoning of Beverly Hills High School Purchase Item Manufacturer: Viking Adult List Price: $25.95 Our Price: $2.66
Customer Reviews:
Parts per Million: The Poisoning of Beverly Hills High School by Viking Adult A Real Page-Turner
I came upon this book at the library.Now I have ordered my own copy as the library copy had pages torn out. I had heard about the oil well lawsuit, but didn't know that a book had been written about it. It's a well researched and well written book. As a graduate of Beverly I'm glad this book was written. I only wish more people knew about it. I was so sad when I read the part about my former teacher,Susan Srere, a veteran of 38 years in the school district, who died soon after she retired. There is something definitely wrong at BHHS-and something wrong with a city which would only allow oil drilling at the high school.
Parts per Million: The Poisoning of Beverly Hills High School by Viking Adult Pure propaganda
As a one time journalist turned environmental lawyer who is intimately familiar with the oil drilling at Beverly Hills High, I think the author has a lot of talent. Unfortunately, it is wasted on Parts per Million. The story had potential but she squandered the opportunity to get it right if she had told it like it was instead of writing a propaganda piece. An objective reporter would have carefully checked out her sources but all too often, unreliable sources are quoted without reservation, if the source supports the author's message. And those who don't are savaged by her. Moreover, her research into the history of the wells leaves much to be desired. It is not that we don't agree that oil wells shouldn't be on a school campus. They shouldn't be in any urban setting or in any environmentally sensitive area. However, it not only defies common sense but also any credible scientific evidence to link them to the hodge podge of diseases that supposedly afflicted former Beverly Hills High School students. I first saw the oil wells scattered on the High School campus in 1946 when my school football team played at Beverly Hills High. I photographed the game and I noticed the oil wells in the background of several of photos and I thought how ugly they were. Those wells had been there since 1928 and have been pumping ever since. Nothing was done until 1978 to clean up the drilling. and conditions were pretty bad then. Yet there were no unusual claims of afflictions occurring prior to then. Ironically, I was hired in 1973 by the City of Beverly Hills to get rid of the oil wells. I had had success in Torrance ridding that City of abandoned and non-productive oil wells, getting legislation passed by the State which made it much easier. It was hoped that because oil was selling at only $2 a barrel, the owners of the high school wells could be convinced to abandon the wells. Unfortunately, later that year there was an oil embargo and the price of oil shot up to $18 a barrel and the well owners had no incentive to abandon the wells even though they were not particularly productive. However, the owners owned oil leases under much of the southwest portion of Beverly Hills and if new wells could be slant drilled to tap the oil under much of the area there was considerable potential. The City was not about to let the owners do that until Proposition 13 passed, which did not affect the City because it was able to increase other taxes to make up for the short fall. But the schools had to rely on property taxes which were severely restricted. So when the owner approached the schools with a proposal to consolidate all the wells located on the school property into one location and to pay much higher royalties to the schools, it appeared to be a win-win situation for the schools. The City Council did not want to go along with it, but the schools and the parents, as well as many of the property owners that had leased their oil rights, put enormous pressure on the City Council to grant the permits. Nevertheless, before granting the permits, the City imposed severe restrictions upon the permit to designed to protect the safety and the health of both the students, faculty and area residents, restrictions more severe than any ever imposed by any other public entity on oil drilling. Knowing the history, when KCBS-TV first broadcast Erin Brockovich's sensational accusations I knew that they were mostly untrue and I informed KCBS of the many of the errors in the story but the station did not contact me. It was more interested in sensationalism than the truth. I have always been skeptical of Erin Brockovich largely because she worked for Ed Masry, who from my dealings with him, was to me a greedy ambulance chaser always looking for a jackpot. He got one in the PG&E case but based on what I learned about the case, I had doubts that he would have won had he gone to trial. So based largely on the fame she got from that case, Brockovich probably thought that she could walk all over Beverly Hills with little effort and as a result she and Masry made a fatal error. The jumped without looking where they were going. They should have made sure that they had a case first. They probably thought all they had to do was say "boo" and Beverly Hills would cave in and settle. But Masry, should have known from his previous experience with Beverly Hills, that Beverly Hills has a history of doggedly fighting cases, particularly when liability is questionable, and this case the City had good reason to question liability and in the end was successful, not because the City had better lawyers, but because there never was a case to begin with.
Parts per Million: The Poisoning of Beverly Hills High School by Viking Adult Human Tragedy
This intense, clearly and compellingly written, painstakingly researched epic is a human tragedy set in a medical and environmental disaster affecting children and their teachers, and the residents of an entire neighborhood. While similar cancer clusters have appeared in other locations, the clear cause of the cancer cluster at Beverly Hills High School has blinded the local government, parents and other residents, and has caused them to act against the best interests of their children and community, dooming them to a huge risk of an array of early fatal cancers. Horowitz has dug deeply into the scientific background and legal action of this disaster, producing a page-turner, despite the volume of information. If this can happen in a wealthy community with the resources of Beverly Hills, it can happen anywhere (and is). Anyone interested in the intersection between business and environmental and legal issues must read this excellent book, which in my opinion should win the Pulitzer Prize!!!!
Parts per Million: The Poisoning of Beverly Hills High School by Viking Adult A Must Read
Joy Horowitz has written a mesmerizing and disturbing account of what is hidden from us, literally and metaphorically. She weaves compelling personal stories together with a history of Beverly Hills, its glamour and secrets, as she exposes the ubiquitous role of oil in this country. A Beverly Hills High graduate herself, the author infuses her journalistic account with a first hand knowledge of the place and the people about whom she writes. It is a moving and revelatory book. And you will want to underline at least one thing on every page.
Parts per Million: The Poisoning of Beverly Hills High School by Viking Adult Riveting
I can't believe how much of a page-turner this book is, given the complex and technical nature of the subject. I was hooked on the second page when the author described the magazines in a hospital waiting room having pages as limp as silk. Such details give a texture to the material which could in other less competent hands be as dry as a bone. That and the fact that the author, an alumna of Beverly Hills High, isn't hopeless about the hideous, head-in-the-sand response from the School District and the City of Beverly Hills. It's a truly marvelous book!
Parts per Million: The Poisoning of Beverly Hills High School by Viking Adult Book Description
A journalist’s unsettling and timely investigation into the ties between Beverly Hills, its oil wells, and a local cancer cluster Beverly Hills High School is the crown jewel of a storied community that has long symbolized wealth and privilege. No one, including the author (class of 1971), thought twice about the oil pumps behind the school’s athletic fields; the derricks were just a part of the landscape, bringing in a sizable amount of royalty money to the community. But in 2003, after a group of young graduates developed cancer and the loudmouthed and sensationalistic Erin Brockovich caused a stir claiming the drilling was the cause, Beverly Hills was dragged into a landmark tort case that has split the town in two and will cause a media stir when it goes to trial later this year. In Parts per Million, Joy Horowitz tells the story behind the headlines, interviewing cancer specialists, lawyers, epidemiologists, city officials, residents, and Brockovich herself. She crafts a riveting picture of PTA moms fighting for the truth, parents in denial, cancer-ridden youth, a school board terrified of having failed in its obligation to keep kids safe, and the complex game of toxic tort litigation that stands to strike a huge financial blow to the powerful oil companies and the iconic community. A Civil Action meets An Inconvenient Truth, Parts per Million couches medical and scientific inquiry in a compelling legal drama. Horowitz examines our tangled relationship with oil, money, and the environment, and bravely questions how many more will have to die before government regulators put economics aside and heed the warnings of science.

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