Ex-Customs Worker Admits Altering Air Quality Readings

A former Customs Service employee who sued the county’s ports over potentially hazardous petroleum coke emissions has admitted in federal court that he tampered with devices to monitor air quality at his Terminal Island office.

Victor E. Nilsen, 55, of San Pedro acknowledged the tampering late Monday afternoon when he pleaded guilty to a felony charge of making false statements about his actions to an agency of the U.S. government. The former Los Angeles police officer and 15-year Customs Service veteran faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Prosecutors alleged that Nilsen, who was a seized-property specialist, originally informed the Customs Service during an internal affairs investigation that he had not heard of anyone “messing” with monitoring equipment at the Customs House on Terminal Island. He also denied in writing that he had handled the devices.

But after being confronted with evidence, including videotapes, Nilsen admitted he added dust and other contaminants to air pollution monitors to make the readings look worse than they actually were.

“We knew there was a problem when we were seeing unusually high spikes of contaminants,” said Assistant U.S. Atty. William W. Carter, the prosecutor. “If they were accurate, you would have had people dropping dead in the streets.”

The Customs House is next to the Los Angeles Export Terminal, the largest coal and petroleum coke operation in the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. It is one of about 30 harbor area facilities that store and export the byproduct of the refinery process.

For years, workers and residents of the harbor area have been concerned about the hazards of airborne coke dust, which can aggravate respiratory illnesses such as asthma, emphysema and pneumonia. The material is used as a fuel in Asia and contains cancer-causing agents.

Nilsen, a lifelong San Pedro resident, joined the controversy in December when he filed a lawsuit against the ports, as well as refineries and cargo terminals that handle petroleum coke.

His suit alleged that coke dust is being emitted in violation of state air and water pollution regulations. The ports and companies have denied any wrongdoing.

Nilsen, who was joined by two other plaintiffs, alleged that his office at the Customs House had become a repository of cancer-causing materials from petroleum coke. At the time, he said he was tired of seeing his co-workers become ill, including 47 in one day, presumably from exposure to airborne particles.

Shortly after the lawsuit was filed, however, Nilsen allegedly began tampering with the air monitoring systems inside the Customs House, which were set up earlier in response to employee complaints about contamination, officials say.

The government says that the tamperings occurred several times from December to March and that Nilsen was captured on videotape putting dust into the sensors and using them to vacuum up dirt on the floors. The devices have suction devices to sample the air.

He said officials of the federal General Services Agency, which maintains government facilities and set up the monitors, became suspicious when the pollution readings were extraordinarily high.

In early May, the Customs Service reassigned Nilsen from the Customs House to the agency’s Long Beach office pending the outcome of the internal investigation. He retired at the end of August.

“The U.S. government did extensive studies that showed there were no air quality problems at the Customs House,” said Gerald Swan, the president and chief executive officer of the Los Angeles Export Terminal. “It does not surprise me that Mr. Nilsen was concerned about those reports and took matters into his own hands.”

Nilsen’s defense attorney, Ed Robinson, declined to comment Tuesday.

Carmen Trutanich, Nilsen’s lawyer in the pollution case, said the conviction will not affect the lawsuit because it has nothing to do with conditions inside the Customs House.