This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2004, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Lawyers for three whistle-blowers who worked at Envirocare of Utah are pressing on with a case that accuses the radioactive waste company of cheating the government by doing shoddy work on federal disposal contracts.
"It is our belief the case has true merit," said attorney Richard D. Burbidge, part of the three-firm team handling the case.
Envirocare has adamantly denied the health, safety and environmental allegations first aired in unsealed court papers last fall. On Aug. 31, lawyers for the Tooele hazardous and radioactive waste landfill will argue to U.S. District Court Judge Bruce Jenkins that the case should be thrown out.
"All I can say about it is that our motions [to have the case dismissed] are well-founded," said Rod Snow, the lead attorney for Envirocare. "Beyond that, I can't say much."
Filed under a Civil War-era law called the False Claims Act, the case began when the workers brought suit on behalf of the federal government. But lawyers for the Army, Energy Department and Environmental Protection Agency - which rely on Envirocare for disposing of waste from low-level radioactive cleanups - declined to take up the case last fall, leaving the whistle-blowers and their private attorneys to press forward.
Envirocare pointed to the federal government's lack of interest in the case as a sign that it had no merit. The company also has retained Robert K. Huffman, a Washington, D.C., expert on helping companies fight False Claims lawsuits.
Despite the federal government's decision not to take part in the case, Burbidge and his team took it on, in part because of the records kept by the former Envirocare employees - Roger Lemmon, Patrick Cole and Kyle Gunderson. The trio had logged 66 incidents in which the company allegedly failed to comply with its federal contracts, sometimes under what they said was the explicit direction of supervisors.
Although the alleged lapses might be considered nit-picky - such as using sand instead of the required clay to cover waste layers and not cleaning up spills promptly - many are tied to contract and regulatory requirements intended to make sure the waste does not someday harm the workers, the environment or public health.
"This is stuff that lasts for thousands of years," said Burbidge, noting the public interest motive behind the case. "If it's not properly stored, and it's blowing in the wind, then clearly it would pose a hazard to the citizens around it."
Located about 80 miles west of Salt Lake City, Envirocare relies heavily on waste from nuclear power plants and federal environmental cleanups for revenues. The company has reported revenues of as much as $140 million in a year, with roughly 80 percent coming from government contracts.
Envirocare, in court papers, cites reasons to persuade the judge to toss the case.
One is that the relator, or star witness, is dead. Roger Lemmon, 45, passed away after being fired from Envirocare for what the company called "safety violations" and about two months after he filed the lawsuit.
Company lawyers argue that past court rulings don't allow False Claims cases to survive the person making the accusations, but lawyers for the federal government, who are still monitoring the case, have filed their own legal arguments disputing that interpretation of the law.
The company is also fighting to prevent Lemmon's widow, Jolene Maynes, from joining the case. Maynes is raising the couple's three young sons in Tooele County.
About 4,281 whistle-blower cases have been brought since the False Claims Act was updated under President Reagan in 1986, according to the Web site for Taxpayers Against Fraud. About $12 billion has been recovered for the federal government, and relators have shared $362 million of that.
Enacted when Abraham Lincoln was president, the False Claims Act targeted suppliers who were defrauding the Union by selling crates filled with sawdust instead of muskets and billing two or three times for the same horses, the Web site says.