Environmental activist Erin Brockovich is scheduled to visit Watertown Thursday night at the invitation of a local group concerned with a Superfund site on the north side of the city.

The land was formerly occupied by New York Air Brake Co., which dumped trichloroethylene, or TCE, and other toxic chemicals on its campus as recently as the 1950s, state officials have said. The cleanup program, part of the Superfund, was run by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Ms. Brockovich and her chief environmental investigator will speak from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday at the North Side Improvement League, 633 Mill St. A meeting notice said it will be about the “recent discovery of trichloroethylene (TCE) contamination.”

Ms. Brockovich, an investigator with Masry’s law firm, rose to prominence when she helped put together a landmark 1996 water pollution case that won the residents of the small desert town of Hinkley, Calif., a $333 million settlement from Pacific Gas & Electric Co.

That story was told in the 2001 movie “Erin Brockovich,” which earned Julia Roberts a best-actress Oscar.

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