Fired manager: BLM covered up hazards at site

Molly Ball

Thursday, Nov. 11, 2004 | 11:07 a.m.

A former manager of the project to clean up the radioactive former mine site in Yerington has filed a whistle-blower complaint claiming state and federal agencies were engaged in a coverup of the site's dangers and fired him because he wouldn't play along.

"(Earle) Dixon's honesty and integrity cost him his job," the complaint states. "But Mr. Dixon's livelihood was not the only casualty. Public health, worker safety and environmental protection have all been compromised for politics and profit as a result of the coverup of which Mr. Dixon's firing is only a part."

Dixon, the former project manager for the mine site cleanup with the federal Bureau of Land Management, is seeking $1 million in damages for his firing last month.

According to the complaint filed by Indiana lawyer Mick Harrison with the U.S. Department of Labor on Wednesday, Dixon was fired not for poor performance but because he aggressively pursued the potential hazard posed by radiation and uranium found in the site's soil and water.

For more than a year, residents around the former Anaconda Copper Mine, about 40 miles east of Lake Tahoe, have been warned not to drink from their wells, which were found to contain uranium. Recent tests have shown radiation levels as high as 200 times what is considered natural on the site, which stopped producing copper in 1978.

When Dixon pushed for further testing of these potential hazards, he was merely following environmental regulations and the requirements of his job description, the complaint states.

"Earle Dixon was fired for doing work that was legally required but politically inconvenient," said Jeff Ruch, executive director of the Washington group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which is aiding Dixon's legal case.

Bureau spokeswoman Jo Simpson on Wednesday said, "We welcome the investigation. We believe we have a disgruntled employee, and the investigation will reveal that we took the appropriate steps" in firing him.

Pressed for specifics on the allegations in the complaint, Simpson said, "We're not going to debate the merits of this case in the newspaper."

The Labor Department now has 30 days to investigate the complaint and make a recommendation, after which any appeals will go before an administrative judge and can be further appealed in federal courts.

When Dixon was fired by BLM Nevada Director Bob Abbey on Oct. 5, he was given a letter accusing him of being "either unable or unwilling to do what is required of the position," according to the complaint.

"In fact, you have alienated many of the groups that we, as an agency responsible for managing public lands, need to deal with in accomplishing our mission in an efficient and effective manner," the letter allegedly stated.

Dixon was ordered to clean out his desk and leave immediately, the complaint charges.

He later learned that his immediate supervisors had been pressured to do the firing but had refused, according to the complaint.

Reached at home on Wednesday, Dixon said his job was to make sure environmental regulations were followed.

"I was hired as an environmental protection specialist, charged with implementing all these environmental laws," including the Clean Air Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Toxic Substances Control Act, Dixon said.

But when he tried to make sure cleanup work done at the site was in accordance with such laws, he met resistance, not from his immediate superiors in Carson City but from the state headquarters in Reno, he said.

Officials were afraid that if proper precautions were taken, the site would be marked with radiation symbols, and people would see workers in white Tyvek "moon suits" and respirator masks, Dixon said.

The resulting alarm would embarrass the state and the company responsible for cleaning up the site, Atlantic Richfield Co., a subsidiary of the global energy giant British Petroleum, he said.

"We weren't trying to make it worse" by pushing for such precautions, he said. "We were just trying to follow the requirements in the law that say that workers need protection."

ARCO has spent years negotiating with government agencies -- BLM, the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the state Division of Environmental Protection -- as to how to clean up the 3,600-acre site, which borders the 3,000-person town of Yerington and a 1,000-resident Indian reservation.

The central incident that allegedly led to Dixon's firing began in February, when he walked around the center of the site with a Geiger counter and was surprised by the radiation readings it showed.

The readings were so unexpected that he figured his counter must be broken, Dixon said. He notified his superiors and began to research the issue, concerned that BLM, which owns about half the site's land, could be liable if workers or the public were exposed to known dangers.

Old documents showed that ARCO knew about the potential radioactivity: in the 1970s, the company had discussed the commercial viability of mining uranium on the site. In June, Dixon hired a contractor to test the area's soil.

The contractor found that Dixon's Geiger counter hadn't been broken or miscalibrated. Some spots on the mine site had radiation levels much higher than expected.

In order to make sure laws such as the Occupational Safety and Health Act were followed, Dixon had to know more, but when he pushed for further tests he was met with angry resistance from the state environmental division and the BLM Reno office, according to the complaint.

"Mr. Dixon spoke honestly about a real threat to the environment, workers and the public from the Yerington Anaconda Mine site, a threat that turned out to be greater than anyone thought or hoped," the complaint states.

"When ARC and the Nevada DEP, rather than facing up to what was now understood to be a more serious danger, decided instead to mislead the public and cover up the danger, Mr. Dixon spoke frankly about that too," it says.