Published: November 28 , 2007

Judge hears testimony in depot case

Bill Robinson
Register News Writer

LEXINGTON -- Donald Van Winkle, who claims his certification to work with chemical agents was revoked and he was forced out of his job at the Blue Grass Army Depot for reporting unsafe practices at the depot, started telling his story to a judge Tuesday.

When he started working for the depot's chemical activity, Van Winkle said safety was stressed constantly. "We were encouraged to raise safety concerns" he said.

However, when he learned that the depot's tests for the presence of VX nerve agent were ineffective, Van Winkle said his concerns were ignored and his supervisors retaliated against him.

Van Winkle is seeking compensation under the federal legislation designed to protect "whistle blowers." Thomas F. Phelan, an administrative law judge with the U.S. Department of Labor, is hearing the case. There is no jury.

Van Winkle’s supervisors "mocked and vilified him," said Paula Dinerstein, senior counsel for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which has taken his case. The supervisors' actions created a hostile environment and led Van Winkle's co-workers to shun him, Dinerstein said in her opening statement.

Eventually, Van Winkle's certification to work in the Army's chemical weapons program was denied, and he was reassigned. Then he was denied training and overtime, she said.

Depot attorney Kevin Bennett said, "Management bent over backward to respond to (Van Winkle's) concerns, and he was afforded full due process."

Instead of retaliating against Van Winkle, his supervisors offered him more training and more overtime, rather than less, Bennett said. "Any hostile environment (at the depot) existed only inside (Van Winkle's) head."

As he cross-examined former depot laboratory technician James Jackson, Bennett tried to establish other reasons why Van Winkle’s co-workers could have shunned him. "Didn't his co-workers raise issues about the quality of his work?" Bennett asked. "Didn't his equipment break down more frequently?" Jackson said that could be the case.

Earlier, Jackson had testified that Van Winkle "did a pretty good job of what he was trained to do" and said he had raised valid safety concerns.

Jackson, now an instructional laboratory chemist at the United States Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., said he had raised safety concerns of his own at the depot. Nerve gas testing equipment in his laboratory was not directly vented as it should have been, Jackson said. U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning had secured an earmarked appropriation to buy chemical safety equipment at the depot, but the "funds were misappropriated," Jackson said.

Jackson said he became discouraged in his job for other reasons than the inadequate venting of laboratory monitors. In addition to seeing Van Winkle lose his chemical weapons certification, depot chemist Kim Shafermeyer was dismissed and chemical activity safety officer Donald Lambert took a job with an Army depot in Tennessee.

Lambert and the chemical activity’'s lead chemist, Bonnie McCoy, "were always at odds over safe ventilation of the laboratory," Jackson said.

Van Winkle said he first became concerned about safety at the depot after attending a training session conducted by the manufacturer of the gas chromatographs used to detect the presence of VX nerve agent in the weapons storage igloos at the depot.

Air is drawn from the igloos through 100-foot-long Teflon tubing to a chromatograph in a mobile lab outside. The monitors can detect GB gas, another nerve agent, but not VX. A filter converts any VX to GB so the monitor can be read it. Because VX is a sticky substance that will adhere to the Teflon tubing, the filter must be placed at the beginning of the feed instead of the end, as was being done at the depot, Van Winkle said.

When told about the depot’s configuration of the monitoring equipment, the instructor said it was ineffective for detecting VX agent, Van Winkle said.

Tests then conducted at the depot confirmed what the instructor said. Test amounts of VX agent was "shot into storage igloo," Van Winkle told the judge. The ill-configured test equipment did not detect it. When configured as prescribed by the manufacturer, however, the monitor detected the nerve agent.

Van Winkle's testimony was to continue Wednesday morning. His attorneys plan to call nine other witnesses. The depot intends to call six. The hearing could last through Thursday.

Bill Robinson can be reached at brobinson@richmondregister.com or at 623-1669, Ext. 267.