LONGVIEW — The city of Woodland will pay the state $25,000 in fines for health and safety violations at its sewer plant, ending a two-year drama sparked by a whistleblower’s reports of unsafe conditions at the plant.
The state originally slapped the city with $98,000 fines in December 2015 after an investigation revealed numerous serious violations at the plant. State inspectors found contaminated testing containers and other unhygienic conditions at the plant’s laboratory; insufficient safety practices for employees working in confined spaces or areas with a high fall risk; and inadequate lock-out procedures, among other problems. The L&I inspection found many of the same problems discovered by Veolia Services in an independent audit in March 2015.
City officials said the plant has corrected the violations and added new ongoing safety training for staff members.
“I’m hoping we can put that in our past and we can move on, and I’m confident that we can,” Mayor Will Finn said Wednesday.
Under the settlement with the state Department of Labor and Industries, the city will have to hire a certified industrial hygienist or safety and health specialist to review all of the city’s programs and ensure workers are up-to-date on training. The city’s public works director must attend in-person, live training from OSHA on topics of lead, confined space, log out/tag out and fall protection. The city also will have to provide quarterly safety updates to L&I.
L&I spokeswoman Elaine Fischer said the original fines were calculated using a higher penalty structure that went into effect in September 2015. But upon further review, L&I determined that because the inspection occurred in July 2015, the fines should have been calculated using a lower penalty structure in place at the time of the inspection.
The city’s additional work to improve worker training, hire a health and safety manager and its commitment to hire a hygienist consultant further helped to cut the fines, she noted.
“It’s typical to see reduced penalties in exchange for investments in better safety and health as part of a settlement,” Fischer said.
In a 6-0 vote, the city council approved of the settlement Monday night, with one council member absent. The council also approved of setting aside $10,000 for the hygienist consultant, said Peter Boyce, city administrator.
The sewer plant’s former superintendent Mark Morgan has been reassigned to another city position, Boyce said. The state Department of Ecology temporarily revoked his wastewater certification last year. Now the plant is led by Derrek Amburgey, who originally blew the whistle on the plant’s potential unsafe and unhygienic conditions.
Amburgey was an operator at the plant for a year and half before he complained to former Woodland Mayor Grover Laseke in mid-2014 of problems at the plant, according to Greg Ferguson, Amburgey’s Vancouver-based lawyer.
He said the plant had released contaminated water into the Lewis River and illegally dumped raw sewage on city property, KOIN 6 reported. He also claimed the plant’s then supervisor, Mark Morgan, falsified records, contaminated the plant by grooming his dog and cutting raw meat there, and brought hard alcohol and a loaded firearm to work.
Shortly after Amburgey alerted state and federal regulators of the problems, he was demoted to a lower-paying position in spring 2015. He filed a retaliation claim against the city for $1 million in April 2015. Four months later, the city gave Amburgey his old job back but it wasn’t until January 2016 that the city reached a $47,873 settlement with him and agreed to scrub his personnel files of negative performance reviews, according to court documents. The city also agreed to give a $2,100 check to make up for his lost pay while he was demoted.
Mayor Finn said resolving the Amburgey’s retaliation complaint was one of his first tasks after entering office in January 2016.
“When I came in, we settled the Amburgey’s situations, a lot of the things were corrected … and Derrek (Amburgey) has been instrumental in making sure those processes are in place,” Finn said.
Following the Amburgey settlement, Ecology revoked Morgan’s certification in February 2016, after the department found the former superintendent falsified information on monthly discharge reports and daily log books, and he failed to report a lapse in disinfection to the right agencies. Morgan could have reapplied for a certification after his yearlong revocation, but he has not done so yet, according to Ecology.
The wastewater treatment problems contributed to the firing of the city’s public works director Bart Stepp in spring 2016, Finn said. Stepp was replaced with Mike Strauch last November, but Strauch recently resigned for personal reasons. The city council Monday appointed former Cowlitz County Commissioner Mike Karnofski to be interim public works director.
On Tuesday, Amburgey said he was happy to see the drama pass.
Amburgey said the city has since invested in upgrading its safety equipment and streamlining several safety and health procedures. After he was promoted to be plant superintendent last July, Amburgey said he also helped the plant’s testing laboratory to regain its accreditation last September after it was removed in November 2014. The re-accreditation will save about $16,000 annually because the city will no longer have to outsource its testing to other labs, according to the city.
“I’m super happy with my job. I love coming to work now. The plant is running great and Ecology is happy with us. We’re basically back to how the plant should be running,” Amburgey said.
