Lynnell Thiebold doesn't consider herself the Erin Brockovich of Springerville even though she gets that a lot.
Unlike Brockovich, Thiebold didn't win her battle but she did write a book about it. It's called “The Road: Memoir of Corruption and Abuse of Power”. The 191 page turner documents her fight with city officials over Tumbling T Drive. Thiebold believes the road is toxic to the neighbors living on it. She happens to be one of them.
In 2003 people living along Tumbling T Drive complained to the city of severe respiratory problems, severe asthma and nose bleeds. At one point, a baby boy was even airlifted to a hospital with respiratory issues.
After a lot of pressure, Thiebold says, city leaders finally responded by re-paving the road but they never tested it. That's what neigbors asked for repeatedly. Thiebold and the neighbors even filed a federal lawsuit that went nowhere.
The road was eventually closed in 2005 but the Springerville saga continues today.
Thiebold's new book The Road; Memoir of Corruption and Abuse of Power is igniting a lot of questions, and lies, about what really happened in the tiny east Arizona town. It's also started another possible legal battle.