Erin Brockovich-Ellis was ``an added bonus,'' he said.

Diederichs and hundreds of other concerned residents streamed into The Lakeland Center on Tuesday night for an update on a lawsuit filed in March against Coronet Industries.

The divorced Polk County man and his three children are among nearly 1,000 plaintiffs represented by Masry & Vititoe, the law firm that employs famous environmental researcher Brockovich-Ellis.

Diederichs' family has lived for a decade on Dranefield Road, about a mile from the shuttered phosphate processing plant in Plant City. A creek that has carried waste from the plant for the better part of a century flows nearby.

The children loved to play in the creek, he said. They drank and bathed from the well at the 1923 house most of their lives.

The children, ages 9 to 14, have long displayed ``nagging health problems'' and learning disabilities, he said.

``Whatever has gone on the past 100 years has gone through that house,'' Diederichs said.

What has gone on at Coronet - at least for the past 50 years or so - was the focus of Tuesday night's presentation.

``We're here because you haven't been given all of the information that you're entitled to,'' said lead attorney Jim Ross of the Texas-based law firm McCurdy & McCurdy, which partnered with Masry & Vititoe on the case.

A two-year investigation by state and federal agencies has failed to link Coronet to health complaints in the community. Health officials have said that although some of the pollution exceeds federal standards, it is not enough to pose a public health threat.

``But you haven't been told about the health effects of the combined contaminants,'' Ross said to the crowd.

Residents also haven't been told that federal regulators believe the contamination is coming from Coronet, he said, producing a recent report from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency indicating that boron and other contaminants found in some well water came from unlined ditches and ponds on the Coronet site.

``Coronet hazardous waste has reached the groundwater,'' noted the EPA report.

What's more, Ross said, the EPA has fretted over Coronet's pollution for 16 years.

He showed a 1989 federal report noting ``it seems likely'' that heavy metals from the plant had migrated into the groundwater and ``could adversely affect the health of 36,092 people'' within a 3-mile radius of the plant.

Brockovich-Ellis also used government documents to make her point, quoting from a 1979 EPA report that estimated more than a quarter-million tons of contaminants had been dumped into Coronet's ponds.

``We have tens of thousands of documents ... that show very significant readings of arsenic, of cadmium, of chromium,'' she said.

Exposure to toxic levels of these and other contaminants can affect kidneys, liver, heart, lungs, brain and bones.

``There is not enough money in this world to give you back your health or that lost spouse,'' Brockovich-Ellis said.

The room erupted in applause.

Coronet spokesman Tom Stewart said Tuesday that Coronet takes reports of health problems seriously, ``but to take aim only at Coronet is a legal maneuver unsupported by nearly a dozen independent studies conducted by seven different government agencies.

``Moreover, this also fails to consider other factors - such as genetics, exposure to agricultural activities in the area, automobile traffic from the Interstate and naturally occurring contaminants - that can impact an individual's health.''

Reporter Jan Hollingsworth can be reached at (813) 754-3765.

Keyword: Coronet, for background on the investigation.