A Florida city fired her for reporting sewage in drinking water. They owe her $818,000

By David J. Neal (Miami Herald)

On April 25, 2023; Updated June 9, 2023

Instead of promoting the experienced inspector who detected why the city’s drinking water was sickening people and pets, the city of Delray Beach harassed her and fired her, an OSHA investigation found.

Last week, 15 months after marching Christine Ferrigan out of her office in front of co-workers, Delray Beach ratified a settlement to a whistleblower lawsuit that will pay Ferrigan $818,500.

That’s on top of the $1 million in civil money penalties Delray paid the Florida Department of Health-Palm Beach County, as per a 2021 consent order, for failing to monitor and report issues that Ferrigan uncovered.

“The City of Delray Beach’s actions toward this worker and its response to concerns about the municipal drinking water supply are deeply troubling,” said Lily Colon, assistant regional administrator for the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

“Our investigation showed that the city harassed and ultimately fired an employee sworn to protect the public for doing their job,” she said. “No worker should fear being punished by their employer for reporting legitimate safety and health concerns, and OSHA will work vigorously to defend courageous people like this inspector.”

Harassment over troubled water

“After reports of smelly, discolored and sandy drinking water, [Ferrigan] investigated and identified faults in the municipal system that were allowing reclaimed sewer water to cross-contaminate the city’s drinking water supply,” the Department of Labor said.

That’s what Ferrigan, hired in 2017 as an Industrial Pre-Treatment Inspector after what her lawsuit says were decades of experience in the profession, reported back to her superiors in December 2018. The city, her lawsuit says, tried to claim “ground disruptions” caused the funky water.

“Reclaimed water is wastewater that has been partially treated to remove some harmful organisms and substances, such as bacteria, viruses, and heavy metals. But reclaimed water still contains elements that make the water unsafe to drink,” Ferrigan’s lawsuit said. “Thus, in Delray Beach, reclaimed water may be used only for irrigationand other purposes that do not involve the likely ingestion of the water.”

In May 2019, Ferrigan told the acting utilities director “that residents reported getting sick, but that fact was not disclosed to DOH. During that time frame, concerned residents would periodically call the City and ask to speak to Ms. Ferrigan to relay their concerns about water quality.”

Ferrigan also told the Palm Beach County Office of the Inspector General about Delray’s concealment when it began investigating the situation.

Delray Beach eventually admitted to 12 years of failing to use a control plan that would have ameliorated or eliminated the problem entirely. That included, according to the city website:

▪ Not conducting “inspections to ensure the distribution system was protected from hazards;”

▪ Not making sure “backflow prevention was installed on all properties where a health, pollution or system hazard to drinking water exists;”

▪ Not checking “customer’s premises for cross-connections and adequate backflow protection whenever a customer connects to reclaimed water;”

▪ Not making “initial and follow-up inspections, testing and complaint investigations as well as periodic inspections of customer connections.”

Meanwhile, the lawsuit said, Ferrigan was being told not to speak to county and state investigators and denied a promotion. One supervisor, the lawsuit said, told her to retire.

In January 2022, Ferrigan reached out to the Department of Health when water treatment operators told her about “brownish water with suspended solids leaving the water treatment plant” and customer complaints. Ferrigan filed a retaliation complaint to the city’s human resources department on Jan. 21.

She was fired Jan. 26, 2022. The city said Ferrigan’s position was eliminated.

This piece was republished from AOL News originally published by the Miami Herald.