What if, instead of properly disposing of hazardous chemicals like pesticides, herbicides and fungicides, one just dumped them down the drain?
In a whistleblower lawsuit filed in April 2021 by Joseph Kim and Jesus Ortiz against their former employer, seed company Incotec, that was allegedly happening at the company’s North American facility in Salinas.
Kim started work at the facility in December 2018 as its safety, health, environment and quality adviser and, according to the lawsuit, he soon learned that the company had been illegally dumping its chemical waste down the drain into the municipal sewer system. After raising this issue with his supervisors, the suit alleges, changes were instituted to come into lawful compliance, which included disposing of the waste chemicals into containers that were trucked offsite to a hazardous waste disposal facility.
But things went awry, the lawsuit claims, when a new plant manager, Greg Pojani, came on board around March 2020. Pojani allegedly began pressuring Kim and other employees about the cost of the waste disposal system Kim had set up, and repeatedly asked about dumping the chemicals down the drain, despite being told it was illegal.
In September 2020, Kim and Ortiz filed separate complaints with the state labor commissioner, citing discrimination, harassment and stress related to the matter.
Ortiz, a seed technician who started at Incotec in 2002, was on duty later that month when the waste disposal pump broke, according...
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