Whistle-Blowing Halted Careers, Truckers Say

James and Rikki Pomerenke spoke out to guard the nation’s food supply. As a result, they no longer feel safe.

Out of work for more than a year, they say they have been blackballed by the local trucking industry since they exposed the practice of hauling toxic chemicals and food products in the same trailers. They keep five loaded guns in their Yakima home for protection.

The couple, along with fellow truckers Dave Helzer and Sharon Sonner, called public attention to some companies’ habit of having drivers deliver chemicals, then wash out the tanker and fill it with food products for the backhaul.

As a result of their whistle-blowing, federal law now restricts such cross-hauling.

The new law, which President Bush signed in November, requires that tankers be clearly labeled for food or chemicals. It also gives drivers the right to refuse an illegal backhaul.

The restrictions will increase down time for drivers and make it more difficult to get lucrative backhauls, the Pomerenkes said.

Still, Cliff Harvison, president of National Tank Truck Carriers Inc. in Alexandria, Va., said that much of the industry supports what the Pomerenkes did.

“They are good, decent, honest, moral people,” Harvison said. “They did the right thing.”

Doing the right thing has not made life easy for the Pomerenkes, however. They say they have been ostracized by friends and are running out of money. They say that they have been threatened, and that former colleagues have warned them they could come to physical harm.

“We are at the end of our rope,” said Pomerenke, 45.

“It’s real hard for me to deal with,” said Rikki Pomerenke, 40. “We don’t have any friends anymore.”

This central Washington city of 55,000 is a major source of fresh produce and has a large trucking industry.

“Down here, people didn’t have an ax to grind and were not bound economically with the fruit and agriculture community of Yakima,” Sonner said. “There’s loose cannons any place and any time.”

Helzer and Sonner have left Yakima. They moved to Hermiston, Ore., after the publicity began to overwhelm them, and after Helzer’s truck was burglarized twice. Although they did not feel they had been blackballed, they thought prospects for steady employment would be better elsewhere, Sonner said.

The Pomerenkes are longtime residents of Yakima. They have family there and don’t want to move.

They say they have sought work with numerous trucking companies, but are turned down as soon as the ownership learns who they are. They would not name any of the trucking companies.

The Pomerenkes acknowledged there has been at least one local job offer, but they turned it down because the pay was less than the prevailing scale.

They live on a $1,500-a-month payment for disability that Rikki receives for a hand injury she suffered while operating a jackhammer on a construction job last year. James draws unemployment benefits.

Sonner said that none of the four whistle-blowers was aware of the attention the publicity would bring them.

“In all honesty, I don’t think the four of us would have had enough nerve to go through with it,” Sonner said. “It’s scary to have someone from D.C. call up and say, ‘Please testify before Congress.’ ”

The Pomerenkes have filed a lawsuit against their former employer in Yakima County Superior Court. Their suit claims the company, Premium Transport, hurt their ability to get work through “unlawful termination, outrageous conduct, defamation and breach of contract.”

Premium Transport is defunct. Its former president, James Ketchum, has answered none of numerous telephone messages. He is a defendant in the lawsuit.

The Pomerenkes had been construction workers in the Yakima area for about 15 years when they decided to seek steady employment together as a long-haul driving team in late 1987.

“What we learned in the year and a half (as drivers) made me sick,” Rikki Pomerenke said.

The lawsuit contends they were asked to lie about previous cargo when using tanker-washing facilities, and to lie to shippers about their most recent load when they picked up a food cargo after hauling chemicals.

They hauled juice, wine and milk after delivering loads of inedible tallow and plastic resin, which is used to make foam insulation.

In May, 1989, the Pomerenkes refused to haul a chemical from the Midwest back to the West Coast. They returned to Yakima empty and were fired.

They are angry about the treatment they have received since their testimony in Washington.

“I’m an American and I love my country and it’s obvious, from what we’ve done, that we care about it,” James Pomerenke said.

“It’s strange that there are no laws to protect people who step forward.”