Suspect in Underground Marijuana Farms Fired by DWP

A Department of Water and Power supervisor was fired from his job Wednesday after officials accused him of building two underground rooms beneath a generating station so he could grow marijuana.

Boyd L. Duffin Jr., 37, and two temporary workers--since relieved of duty at the Scattergood Generating Station near El Segundo--are being investigated for possible criminal charges by the district attorney’s office. A DWP spokeswoman declined to release the names of the temporary workers.

Duffin, who filed an appeal of his dismissal Wednesday afternoon, said he did nothing wrong and did not know the rooms existed until DWP investigators told him about them in March.

“If the process works, in the end it’s going to be proved out that I had nothing to do with this and I’ll be reinstated to my job,” Duffin said.

According to the department’s charges, Duffin, a maintenance and construction supervisor, enlisted the two men in February or March of last year to help build the two 10-by-40 foot rooms.

Duffin allegedly used DWP materials and arranged for a work order for a backhoe operator to dig the chambers underneath a previously approved project to build a construction slab near the southeast corner of the Scattergood plant.

The rooms remained a secret until two months ago, when investigators acting on an anonymous tip found a hidden trap door inside a tool shed. The door, which concealed one of two entrances to the rooms, covered a narrow tunnel leading into the chambers.

The other entrance was inside a makeshift employee weightlifting room.

Although no marijuana plants were present when officials found the site in March, soil test results, disclosed for the first time Wednesday, indicate that there had been marijuana growing there, said DWP spokeswoman Mindy Berman.

The chambers had electricity, fresh water and a ventilation system, as well as plastic-lined sumps dug in one corner for collection of excess water. Inside the rooms were a small pump, polyethylene irrigation hose and nitric acid, which is used as a base for fertilizers.

Duffin, a seven-year DWP employee, said he was ordered by his supervisor to assign a work crew last year to build the construction slab. He said he spent most of the project’s construction time working on other sites away from Scattergood.

He said one of the workers who has confessed to building the rooms after-hours and on weekends later told investigators that Duffin had ordered him to build them.

“He said he was following orders from me, which is absolutely not true,” Duffin said. “I stand firm in my statement that I’m innocent. I’m going to do everything I can to vindicate myself.”