Firefighters training at the Washington State Fire Training Academy (FTA) in North Bend between 2012 and 2014 may have been exposed to contaminated water, according to court documents filed March 1 by Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson.
Ferguson named wastewater plant operator George Campbell and the company he owns, Broadband Environmental Service Inc., based in Shelton, in charges he filed late yesterday. Campbell and his company will face seven misdemeanor and felony charges in King County Superior Court, for falsifying data filed with the state Department of Ecology and violating the state's Reclaimed Water Use Act.
According to court documents, Campbell's company had been contracted to operate the Fire Training Academy's (FTA's) wastewater treatment plant from 2009 to September, 2014. Once the water was treated to meet state standards for re-use, "the reclaimed water from the FTA reclaim facility was used by firefighters for fire-fighting exercises, and was occasionally sprayed on firefighters themselves on unseasonably hot days."
After the company's contract ended in 2014, many data discrepancies were discovered and approximately 22 months of state-required electronic data from the Broadband Environmental Services' contract period had disappeared. From 2012–2014, the state alleged, Campbell falsified water quality data 177 times in reports to the Department Ecology.