Saturday, November 13, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

TRADING BLAME: BLM officials deny cover-up at mine

Fired manager denies holding up cleanup work at site

Earle Dixon takes radiological readings at the former Anaconda copper mine near Yerington in this February photo provided by Dixon. The Bureau of Land Management project manager was fired in October and has filed a federal whistle-blower complaint. COURTESY PHOTO

RENO -- Bureau of Land Management officials insisted Friday there's "no cover-up" at a polluted Nevada mine and blamed cleanup delays on the former project manager who filed a federal whistle-blower complaint.

A lawyer for whistle-blower Earle Dixon said the environmental specialist was fired by bureaucrats who "shot the messenger" rather than respond to his concerns about radioactive materials and other toxic wastes at the former Anaconda copper mine near Yerington in Northern Nevada.

Also Friday, a tribal leader defended Dixon, and leaders of a watchdog group said they relied on Dixon for more credible information about the mine's dangers than was being disclosed by state regulators or Atlantic Richfield Co., the subsidiary of British Petroleum primarily responsible for the cleanup.

Arco and Nevada Division of Environmental Protection officials countered that the various agencies were working more closely on the cleanup at the 3,600-acre site since Dixon was fired Oct. 15.

Dixon's firing was made public this week after he filed a whistle-blower complaint with the U.S. Labor Department in San Francisco seeking more than $1 million in damages.

Dixon said BLM state director Bob Abbey fired him because Dixon insisted on stricter worker safety standards and publicized radiation, air and water pollution violations at the abandoned mine about 55 miles southeast of Reno.

His firing marks "an unprecedented political intervention in a hazardous waste cleanup operation and reflects retaliatory motive by the BLM state director," said Mick Harrison, Dixon's lead lawyer based in Bloomington, Ind.

"It confirms our fears that there has been an attempt to suppress information and suppress the cleanup process at the mine," said Elyssa Rosen, executive director of the Great Basin Mine Watch group in Reno.

Dixon's complaint said BLM officials responded to his concerns by ordering him not to speak to the media and censoring and editing his technical communications and memos.

BLM spokeswoman Jo Simpson said Friday that health and safety concerns have been paramount in the agency's cleanup efforts. Dixon's dismissal had nothing to do with his insistence on stricter safety measures, she said.

"There is no cover-up. All the data that has been generated has been provided to the public, provided to EPA and NDEP and put on the Web site," Simpson said.

Dixon "was fired because he was not performing his duties appropriately," she said. "He was failing to do his job. Little progress was being made cleaning up the site."

Tests this summer found unusually high levels of radiation in soil samples at the mine. Earlier groundwater tests showed high concentrations of uranium, up to 200 times the U.S. drinking water standard.

BLM owns about half of the land at the mine site. Arco became responsible for most of the remaining acres after the bankruptcy of the previous owner, Arimetco.

Dixon's complaint accuses the BLM and the state of kowtowing to Arco even when the company's cleanup proposals were inadequate.

"It was Earle who was complaining that the site was not being cleaned up fast enough," Harrison said.

"Management prevented the work from happening, and now they're complaining that because of Earle, the work didn't get done."

Dixon's complaint said then-Environmental Protection Division Administrator Allen Biaggi wanted BLM to fire Dixon in May 2004 "because Dixon was perceived to not be a team player when Dixon accused NDEP of covering up and or conspiring to cover up politically unwelcome information about contamination."

Biaggi, now director of the Nevada Department of Conservation & Natural Resources that oversees the division, had no comment, spokeswoman Cindy Petterson said.

Dan Ferriter, Arco's environmental project manager for the site, said he found Dixon difficult to work with.

"Them saying he is not a team player is true. He had a difficult time working with the other agencies from our perspective and even a difficult time explaining or sharing information," Ferriter said. "He went out and did a lot of work on his own without telling anybody about it."

Dixon scoffed at the idea that he was responsible for holding up any of the work at the site.

"That's a pretty Herculean task for one guy in Carson City to be able to hold up the EPA, the BLM, NDEP and Atlantic Richfield from moving forward," he said Friday.

Abbey wrote in a letter outlining reasons for Dixon's termination that Dixon "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."

Rosen said Dixon might have alienated officials at BLM, the Environmental Protection Division and Arco, who she said were dragging their feet on the cleanup.

"But I don't believe that Earle alienated any of the community members who were concerned about whether they are the recipients of radioactive hazards," she said.

Bob Boyce, tribal manager for the Yerington Paiute Tribe, said Dixon was always "helpful and knowledgeable."

"As opposed to being an alarmist, he presented both sides of the issues and I feel that he made many significant contributions to the research and planning processes," he said.