DOH/DEP asbestos fact sheet draft, 105 Duane Street

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

Jenkins v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 88-SWD-2 (ALJ July 10, 1998) Page 30 of 34

advocated by Jenkins, more testing, required an expenditure of $24 million. Her supervisors believed complainant's proposal of spending that amount of money on additional testing was misdirected and they wanted to proceed with the listing process without additional testing, delay, and cost. Finally, as Petruska's memo indicates, OSW was investigating whether UDMH II should even be listed under HSWA. Therefore, in light of OSW's position regarding HSWA, as well as Jenkins' contrary position, her supervisors removed her from the project. This was a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason to remove Jenkins from the UDMH project.

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b. Period of Isolation and No Duties, 1990 -1991

Complainant alleges that from 1990-1991 she faced another period of no duties and isolation which constituted an adverse action. This assertion cannot be supported regarding her activities in 1990. She worked on both Uniroyal's UDMH listing and UDMH II until August 30, 1990 at which point she was removed from UDMH II but continued work on the Uniroyal listing. Complainant also interacted significantly with the public during this time period, which she argues was a part of her official duties (Compl. brief at 135). She was interviewed in connection with a criminal investigation of Monsanto in February and November of 1990 and wrote a follow up memo regarding Monsanto in January 1991. Accordingly, I find that complainant was not subject to a period of no duties and isolation in 1990.

After January 1991, however, Jenkins did experience a period where she was assigned no duties. This was confirmed by Petruska as being unusual (TR 1491-92). One of the reasons Jenkins had no duties during this time period was due to the fact that her supervisors decided she should not work on any listings involving Monsanto products (TR 1554-56). Even assuming that the no work period was an adverse action motivated in part by Jenkins protected activities involving Monsanto, the EPA had a legitimate, non-discriminatory business reason to not assign her to any work involving Monsanto products.

Prior to the time of Jenkins' period of no duties, she engaged in several interactions regarding Monsanto. In February of 1990, she wrote the chair of EPA's Science Advisory Board alleging that Monsanto had fraudulently prepared an epidemiological study. The information contained in this letter was based on a plaintiffs brief in a suit against Monsanto. She worked with Vietnam veterans groups and Congress regarding dioxin exposure and the Monsanto study. She met with two agents from. the National Enforcement Investigations Center about her fraud allegations concerning Monsanto. She wrote two follow-up memos after the meeting describing how she believed the allegedly fraudulent study affected EPA's regulatory process and sent copies to outside parties. One of the investigators contacted her after she sent out her first memo and asked that she not reveal the ongoing criminal investigation of Monsanto, to which she responded she could not comply. Petruska testified that he considered disciplining Jenkins for revealing an ongoing criminal investigation because doing so violated EPA policy. Monsanto wrote several letters to the EPA expressing their concern over Jenkins' actions. The Department of Justice, EPA's Inspector General's office, and EPA's Office of Enforcement all investigated possible personnel actions that could be taken against complainant for revealing this information and violating EPA policy (TR 74, CX 326).

Because of these incidents, it would have been foolhardy for Petruska to have assigned Jenkins work concerning Monsanto products. He testified that he was concerned that Monsanto might have a legal basis to challenge any listings that Jenkins worked on because of the "appearance that she wasn't

file://A:\Dismissed.html 12/21/01

NYC-WTC 000125967