Nuclear Plant Whistle-Blowers Have Little Success in Questioning Safety : Workplace: Over seven months, judges have rejected the cases of three Hanford employees who complained of harassment.

They are hailed by supporters as nuclear industry heroes, but whistle-blowers who say they are being harassed by their bosses for raising safety concerns at the Hanford reservation have had no luck in court.

The court cases of company whistle-blowers have failed three times in seven months.

“There are problems with burdens of proof and some biases among judges, and in the system itself against whistle-blowers,” said Tom Carpenter, a Washington attorney who provides free legal services to such clients.

“You also face very rich law firms with unlimited access to federal funds to fight these cases,” he said. “You are staring down the barrel of the federal government’s legal power.”

Whistle-blowers in the nuclear industry have never had much success.

Perhaps the most famous was Karen Silkwood, a technician at a plutonium plant who died in a mysterious 1974 Oklahoma car accident. She was driving to a meeting with a reporter for the New York Times to discuss alleged safety problems at the Kerr-McGee plant.

Some believe Silkwood was killed; her story was made into a movie. The most recent whistle-blower defeat had elements of the Silkwood case.

Paula Nathaniel was a chemist monitoring potentially explosive nuclear waste storage tanks at Hanford, which for decades produced plutonium for nuclear weapons. In 1990, she reported that a co-worker lit a cigarette near a tank that routinely filled with explosive hydrogen.

Nathaniel said her managers ordered her to rescind her memo, then launched a harassment campaign when she refused. She said the harassment included break-ins at her apartment, tapping her telephone and a high-speed chase with a car that followed her to a meeting with a U.S. Labor Department investigator.

Westinghouse Hanford Co., which operates the reservation for the U.S. Energy Department, called the allegations preposterous.

Labor Department Law Judge James J. Butler issued a 24-page opinion in March dismissing Nathaniel’s complaint. It was scathing in its criticism of her.

The judge questioned Nathaniel’s motives, saying that she appeared more interested in causing problems for a rival employee than in ensuring safety. He noted a long history of personality clashes and erratic behavior in her relationships with managers.

Elaine Dodge, an attorney for Nathaniel, said Butler’s decision illustrates a major problem.

“The average person doesn’t believe the government would engage in that kind of surveillance activity,” Dodge said. “It’s a huge burden to get over people’s biases.”

Extensive legal protections exist for some whistle-blowers, but those working for federal contractors have fewer protections.

“We as lawyers are having to patch together remedies for them and find and stretch laws to cover them,” Carpenter said.

Two other Hanford workers, Ed Bricker and Gary Lekvold, said they were harassed by employers for raising safety concerns.

Bricker sued for $30 million, but a federal judge threw out the case, ruling that employees of federal contractors are not covered by whistle-blower protections.

Lekvold sued for $33 million and was later suspended for insubordination.

In March, Energy Secretary James Watkins issued a rule that established procedures for investigating harassment complaints by whistle-blowers. He also created an office to specialize in such complaints.