SCOTT SONNER Associated Press writer | Posted: Monday, September 4, 2006 12:00 am
RENO, Nev. - An administrative law judge ruled Friday that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management illegally fired a former supervisor for speaking out about the health and safety dangers at a toxic mine site in Nevada.
The federal judge ordered the BLM to pay Earle Dixon two years worth of back pay and benefits totaling more than $120,000, saying it was clear that "Dixon was fired for his whistleblowing activities" at the former Anaconda copper mine in Yerington about 60 miles southeast of Reno.
The BLM also must reimburse Dixon for $10,000 in moving expenses after he was fired in October 2005 as well as attorney fees and costs expected to exceed $50,000, under the ruling by Richard K. Malamphy, an administrative judge for the Labor Department in Newport News, Va.
"This is both a victory for Earle Dixon and for the idea that the federal government is not above the law," said Richard Condit, a lawyer for the Washington D.C.-based Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility who represented Dixon along with co-counsel Mick Harrison of Bloomington, Ind.
"The people of Nevada should now be asking hard questions about whether they are being put at risk by the very public agencies that are supposed to be protecting them," he said.
The judge denied Dixon's request for up to $1 million in exemplary damages. He stopped short of ordering the BLM to reinstate Dixon but instructed the agency to give him a "favorable or at least neutral job reference."
Condit said they would consider appealing that portion of the ruling so that Dixon might have the option of returning to the BLM. After he was fired, Dixon eventually went to work as an environmental consultant for Tsali Associates in Gallup, N.M. He did not immediately return a call seeking comment on Friday.
The BLM also has the option of appealing the ruling. Agency officials did not immediately return calls seeking comment on Friday.
Dixon, whose annual salary was about $58,000, argued he was fired in retaliation for publicizing the increasing health and safety hazards being unearthed at the abandoned mine owned by Atlantic Richfield Co., including unsafe levels of uranium that he claims state regulators knew about but covered up since 1984.
In his whistleblower complaint filed in November 2004, Dixon said he had he refused to go along with repeated attempts by BLM management and the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection to downplay the issue.
Last year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency assumed lead responsibility for cleaning up the mine covering 6 square miles on the edge of Yerington, something Dixon long had advocated.
"Earle Dixon's courage helped shield Nevadans from the neglect of their own government," Condit said Friday.
Dixon said during a three-day administrative hearing in Reno in February that the cleanup costs at the abandoned mine had risen dramatically - from an estimated $10 million or $20 million to potentially more than $200 million - as a result of research he conducted or directed on dangers from uranium and other toxins.
Tests conducted while Dixon was in charge in the summer of 2004 found unusually high levels of radiation in soil samples at the mine. Earlier groundwater tests showed high concentrations of uranium in wells on site - up to 200 times the U.S. drinking water standard.
Dixon said BLM responded by criticizing him for his disclosures, ordering him not to speak to the media, and censoring and editing his technical communications and memos.
Kevin Mack, an Interior Department lawyer representing the BLM, argued that Dixon was fired because he undermined efforts by the state agency and state regulators to get Atlantic Richfield to voluntarily clean up contamination as the lead party responsible for the effort.
Mack said during the hearing that Dixon was "a hardworking, serious-minded federal employee," but that his tactics became "more strident, unforgiving … and obstructionist."
"Mr. Dixon's inability to work cooperatively with partner agencies became a serious impediment for the BLM," he said.
At the hearing, Dixon's immediate supervisor said he gave Dixon a satisfactory job appraisal a month before he was fired. Two other higher ranking supervisors also testified that they opposed Dixon's firing.
Jim Sickles, EPA's lead official at the mine, said he had a good working relationship with Dixon and that he did "good, sound technical work."