Erin Brockovich's law firm claimed in a suit filed in April 2003 that benzene fumes from an oil well on the grounds of Beverly Hills High School was causing cancer in former students. The big media ate it up -- but the claims behind the headlines may have had little factual basis.

Erin Brockovich has been a hero to environmental muckrakers and investigative types ever since Julia Roberts immortalized her in the year-2000 movie named after her. The 1993 toxic-tort class action in which she organized 650 little-guy residents of Hinckley, California, to slay the Goliath of Pacific Gas & Electric was portrayed as a victory of truth over power. Well ... a settlement at least.

Now a story by Los Angeles Times reporter Eric Umansky in Columbia Journalism Review reminds us that funny things may happen to the truth in La-La Land. The kicker headline: "Muckraker 90210." It's a cautionary tale reminding environmental journalists that any story good enough for a screenplay may be too good to be true.

Brockovich's (now Brockovich-Ellis) law firm of Masry & Vititoe, had filed 25 suits against the Beverly Hills School District claiming that an oil well under the high school's athletic field was emitting high levels of benzene. The school district and the South Coast Air Quality Management District disputed the claim, saying benzene levels at the school were comparable to background levels.

Umansky's story replays the events of the 2003 media frenzy at slow speed -- noting, for example, that Brockovich called the local CBS affiliate (KCBS) with her claim of high benzene levels before even talking to the school district.

Enter Norma Zager, editor of the Beverly Hills Courier, a small free weekly, who attended early meetings and told Umansky she sensed a "scam." Brockovich and Ed Masry, she said, dodged potential claimants' requests for explanations of why government regulators had found only normal benzene levels.

As Zager kept digging into the story, the media frenzy continued. Environmental agencies and health experts kept finding no evidence of toxic hydrocarbons at the site, and the Brockovich-Masry firm kept refusing to disclose the test results on which their original case was based. Finally, the city subpoenaed their results and a judge ordered them to disclose.

As the big media kept playing the story, Zager was the only one to report that Brockovich had to be forced to disclose the results -- and that her own results showed not what she had claimed, but levels close to normal. The number of cancer cases cited -- once they were forced to be disclosed -- turned out to be exaggerated also. Zager also learned that the producer of the original KCBS segment that started the panic turned out to be a friend whose campaign for the Thousand Oaks city council Masry had contributed to.

This spring, the Beverly Hills case ground on unresolved, with a new investigation by a district attorney added to the ongoing civil suits. But the coverage seems to have abated some, and there is no settlement in sight.