Review of Sanitation Officials’ Acts Urged : Reaction: Call is prompted after locks are changed on doors of manager aiding district attorney with probe.

An Orange County Sanitation District director Tuesday called for a review after administrators ordered locks changed on the doors of a laboratory complex managed by an official who is aiding a district attorney’s investigation of the agency.

County Supervisor Roger R. Stanton, a member of the sanitation district’s board of directors, said he was shocked by the agency’s action and characterized it as “not in keeping with the normal business.”

“Whistle-blowers are protected under California law and should not be subject to harassment,” said Stanton, calling for a review of agency personnel policy.

Sanitation district spokeswoman Corine Clawson has said the locks were changed on about 10 doors of the Fountain Valley laboratory complex as a security precaution.

That was done, she said, a day after an attorney for laboratory manager Dr. Louis Sangermano informed the district that he was helping prosecutors in a probe of certain sanitation agency activities.

Sangermano, who is on medical leave from his duties and has been refused reinstatement pending an examination by sanitation agency doctors, said the district’s administrators have been “operating way below board” in an attempt to force him out.

“It gets worse and worse all the time,” Sangermano said. “They are doing everything they can to prevent me from coming back to work.”

District administrators were not available for comment Tuesday.

In addition to the lock changes, the laboratory manager--whose office provides analyses of local coastal waters and monitors industrial discharge among other duties--said his private telephone message system has been recoded, shutting him out of any communication with his staff.

“It’s so crazy there,” Sangermano said. “I feel they are breaking the law, left, right and sideways.”

His attorney, Lisa M. Howard of Santa Monica, said in a letter to the district Tuesday that “Changing door locks, forcing unwarranted medical leave, etc. . . . are pathetically desperate, despicable and terribly careless” actions. “Demand is now made that Dr. Sangermano is allowed to return to work immediately.”

Neither Sangermano nor his attorney have talked about their discussions with the district attorney, but officials have confirmed that investigators have received numerous documents about alleged improprieties involving agency operations.

Prosecutors also have said they are reviewing reports that sanitation officials may have improperly accepted gifts from contractors doing business with the county.

On another front, sanitation officials Tuesday canceled plans to issue a public response to a state report that cited the districts for serious safety code violations relating to a fire earlier this year which killed two workers at the Huntington Beach treatment plant.

Clawson said the matter was referred to district lawyers Tuesday after sanitation officials received notice from the fire victims’ families, indicating their intention to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the sanitation agency, the city of Huntington Beach and the state of California.

Attorneys for the families claimed that the fire resulted from the “negligent installation and maintenance and observation” of equipment that allowed flammable oxygen gas mixture to seep into an open trench where the victims were working. Both of the workers died from burns and were employees of Pascal and Ludwig Engineers.

The engineering firm was also cited for safety code violations by the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration, but the victims’ attorneys said they had no intention of naming the firm in its planned lawsuit.

Cal/OSHA’s Bureau of Investigation is continuing a criminal investigation of the incident.