Discussion

Aberdeen Three

The Aberdeen Proving Ground is a U.S. Army facility where, among other things, chemical weapons are developed. The U.S. Army has used the facility to develop, test, store, and dispose of chemical weapons since World War II. Periodic inspections between 1983and 1986 revealed serious problems with a part of the facility known as the Pilot Plant, including the following: Flammable and cancer-causing substances were left in the open. Chemicals that would become lethal if mixed were kept in the same room. Drums of toxic substances were leaking. There were chemicals everywhere misplaced, unlabeled, or poorly contained. When part of the roof collapsed, smashing several chemical drums stored below, no one cleaned up or moved the spilled substance and broken containers for weeks.1When an external sulfuric acid tank leaked 200 gallons of acid into a nearby river, state and federal investigators were summoned to investigate. They discovered that the chemical retaining dikes were in a state of disrepair and that the system designed to contain and treat hazardous chemicals was corroded, resulting in chemicals leaking into the ground.2On June 28, 1988, after two years of investigation, three chemical engineers care Gepp, William Dee, and Robert Lentz, now known as the Aberdeen Three were criminally indicted for illegally handling, sorting, and disposing of hazardous wastes in violation of the Resource Conservation and RecoveryAct (RCRA). Although the three engineers did not actually handle the chemicals, they were the managers with ultimate responsibility for the violations. Investigators for the Department of Justice concluded that no one above them was sufficiently aware of the problems at the Pilot Plant to be assigned responsibility for the violations. The three engineers were competent professionals who played important roles in the development of chemical weapons for the United States. William de, the developer of the binary chemical weapon,headed the chemical weapons development team. Robert Lentz was in charge of developing the processes that would be used to manufacture the weapons. Carl Gepp, manager of the Pilot Plant, reported toDee and Lentz. Six months after the indictment, the Departmentof Justice took the three defendants to court. Each defendant was charged with four counts of illegally storing and disposing of waste. William Dee was found guilty of one count, and Lentz and Gepp werefound guilty on three counts each of violating theRCRA. Although each faced up to 15 years in prisonand $750,000 in fines, they received sentences of1,000 hours of community service and 3 years probation. The judge justified the relatively light sentences on the grounds of the high standing of the defendants in the community and the fact that they had already incurred enormous court costs. Because the three engineers were criminally indicted, the U.S. Army could not assist them in their legal defense. This was the first criminal conviction of federal employees under RCRA.