Fired MPCA scientist returns to testify about Atrazine
By John Croman
KARE 11 News
10/11/07
A fired scientist who levied a whistleblower lawsuit against the state spoke to lawmakers Thursday about Atrazine, seven months after he was denied the chance to say the same things.
Paul Wotzka is a hydrologist who logged 16 years monitoring water quality for the Minnesota Department of Agriculture before moving to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency last year.
On March 20th Wotzka took a call from Representative Ken Tschumper, a dairy farmer who advocates banning Atrazine from use in Minnesota.
"He read an article in a DNR magazine where I was quoted as saying we've seen some increasing concentrations of Atrazine in trout streams in southeastern Minnesota," recalled Wotzka.
Tschumper, the author of several bills aimed at tightening regulation of the farm chemical, asked Wotzka to appear at a hearing planned for the next day.
"I sent a request to testify to my supervisors," Wotzka told reporters Wednesday.
"I was denied the ability to speak at that hearing. The next week I was put on investigatory leave. And six weeks later I was fired."
The Department of Employee Relations listed several reasons for axing Wotzka in its formal termination letter, but the timing of the action and the nature of his work caused Atrazine opponents to suspect he'd been punished for trying to go public with what he'd found.
Senator John Marty, a Roseville Democrat, invited Wotzka to testify Wednesday at a hearing on the subject of Atrazine and "scientific integrity."
Marty contends Wotzka and other state-employed scientists have been muzzled, harassed and removed for purely political reasons.
"Not just in Minnesota, but here as well, politics is beginning to trump science in state agencies and federal agencies."
Marty cited the case of former MPCA research scientist Fardin Oliaei who left in 2005 after a contentious internal battle with managers on the issue of perfluorinated chemicals in the water supply.
"It's kind of the old Soviet Union style of governing and the state agencies have been doing it that way," Marty quipped.
Several environmental groups, including the Land Stewardship Project, the Sierra Club and the Clean Water Alliance submitted a letter Thursday to Pollution Control Commissioner Brad Moore asking him to reinstate Wotzka to his old post.
But according to MPCA spokesperson Amy Rudolph, the matter isn't in Brad Moore's hands anymore. It's up to the Employee Relations department.
Rudolph told KARE 11 Wotzka's version of the story leaves out an important point: the state's investigation of the scientist began in January, two months before he was asked to testify at the Atrazine hearing.
Although Wotzka worked at the MPCA at the time he was fired, that investigation stemmed from Wotzka's final days at Department of Agriculture in October of 2006.
According to the termination letter, Wotzka "removed hard copies of data sheets and field log books from his Rochester office" and "deleted thousands of critical files from his computer" at the Ag Department.
He was also let go because he "Wrongfully filed a change of address form directing all Ag Department mail to himself at the MPCA."
She said the MPCA disputes any blatant attempt to silence Wotzka as a witness. Rudolph said the agency simply told Representative Tschumper last March the staff at the Ag Department were more qualified to testify about pesticides than those at Pollution Control.
Paul Wotzka said his lawyer advises him to not comment on the specifics of his whistleblower right now. He said he needs to let the legal process run its course. But the accusations contained in that termination letter prompted some lawmakers to question Wotzka's presence at the Atrazine hearing Thursday.
"We're going to hear testimony about things that may have been deleted from a hard drive by someone that was an employee for the state of Minnesota," Senator Betsy Wergin argued.
The Republican from Princeton tried to convince Marty to pull the plug on Wotzka's testimony.
"That seems rather inappropriate. That's a large concern for me and Senator Marty I'm going to ask you not to have this person testify because I think it's wrong."
Marty denied Wergin's request and allowed Wotzka to testify. The committee also heard from the Ag Department's top pesticide man Dan Stoddard.
Stoddard, the MDA's pesticide management section chief, told lawmakers that the agency's concerned about Atrazine in ground water and other water supplies. He said, however, the levels detected by the Ag Department are well below the thresholds set by the Environmental Protection Agency.
While the European Union banned the use of Atrazine in farming, the EPA in 2006 recertified the herbicide as safe for use in the United States where it's been used for nearly 50 years.
The nation's leading scientific critic of Atrazine, Cal-Berkeley biologist Tyrone Hayes, was also in Saint Paul for the hearing. He said he understands what Paul Wotzka faces as a researcher challenging farming practices.
Years ago Hayes started seeing a connection between Atrazine and reproductive abnormalities in amphibians and fish. He told reporters he's been in the crosshairs of the farm chemical industry, which often discounts his research as unfounded.
"There are greater than 30 studies showing the impact on Atrazine on amphibians," Hayes said.
"There are nine studies that suggest Atrazine has no effect. And they were all funded by the industry and they were all funded by the same people."
Paul Wotzka's battle continues on two fronts, the lawsuit and a routine administrative appeal process available to state employees. In the meantime he agrees with Senator Marty that the current political climate isn't on conducive to a free exchange of information on pressing environmental issues.
"I would hope that in the great state of Minnesota that there would a very good dialogue between policy makers and scientists. I don't think that currently exists today."
(Copyright 2007 by KARE. All Rights Reserved.)
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