Whistleblower brings $10 million wrongful termination claim against Pierce County city

A former employee has filed a $10 million claim against the city of Orting, alleging that he was wrongfully terminated after bringing attention to problems with the city’s wastewater treatment plant, among other things.

The city hired John Bielka as the city’s capital projects manager in June 2022. City leaders put the 63-year-old on administrative leave in March of this year, then fired him June 12, according to records he shared with The News Tribune.

“The City terminated John Bielka’s employment following a third-party investigation that resulted in findings warranting termination,” City Administrator Scott Larson told The News Tribune in a statement Sept. 23. “The integrity of our City’s workforce is paramount. The City stands by the termination.”

Bielka filed a tort claim Aug. 28 as a precursor to a lawsuit. It starts a 60-day clock, after which Bielka can file a lawsuit against the city if the matter is not resolved.

He has also filed a whistleblower complaint against the city that has been assigned to an administrative law judge, Bielka’s attorney, Richard Wooster, told The News Tribune.

“Mr. Bielka was placed on administrative leave after he documented that there were ongoing concerns with the wastewater treatment plant, the proposed design of the plant, and constant leaching of wastewater into the aquifer surrounding the wastewater treatment plant that has continued unabated for over a year,” the tort claim alleges.

$10 million in grant funding

The claim says Bielka brought in more than $7.5 million in grants and had another $3 million lined up before he was fired.

“This is a man who brought in $10 million in grant funding into the city of Orting,” Wooster told The News Tribune.

Bielka shared the third-party investigator’s report with The News Tribune, as well as the letter from the city firing him, among other documents related to his claim.

The letter said the investigator found he committed insubordination, abused his authority, retaliated against another employee and violated Orting’s whistleblower policy, was “dishonest and unprofessional” at times, went to City Council members with issues he should have taken to administrators, misled the council about the plans to replace the wastewater treatment plant and created a false impression about whether a bid from a vendor was lower than another.

“The stated reasons to terminate Mr. Bielka were nothing but a pretext to mask the discriminatory and retaliatory desire of Mayor (Joshua) Penner to remove a dedicated and knowledgeable public employee to prevent him from digging deeper ...,” Bielka’s tort claim says.

‘Nobody was willing to deal with it.’

Bielka has various allegations against the city in his claim, but he told The News Tribune one of his primary concerns is that the lagoon of the city’s wastewater treatment plant routinely overflows near the city’s aquifer and near the Carbon River.

“We’re not allowed to dump wastewater into the ground,” he said.

He said he kept the issues out of emails and tried to address them behind the scenes for more than a year while he encouraged others to do the right thing.

“Nobody was willing to deal with it,” he said. “I knew this had to be addressed.”

He put his concerns in writing in a March 4 email to city leaders.

“Water has been flowing out of the lagoon onto the surrounding land which then infiltrates into the ground,” the email said in part. “We have discussed the issue on a number of occasions ... .”

Bielka says a spill following a storm in November was reported to the Department of Ecology, but he alleges the ongoing overflow wasn’t, as far as he knows.

“I believe it’s important for our city attorney to examine this situation to determine if it constitutes a breach of our environmental permit, and whether or not we should also notify the Department of Ecology,” his email said.

Bielka says it was two and a half hours after he sent the email that city leaders put him on administrative leave.

The city’s third-party investigator, Kathleen Haggard with Haggard & Ganson LLP, wrote that: “Bielka sent his March 4 email to deflect from his own conduct,” and that: “Scientific evidence has not substantiated Bielka’s claims of groundwater contamination ... .”

Haggard wrote that the city didn’t retaliate against him for whistleblowing.

“To secure protection against retaliation, whistleblower complaints must be in good faith,” the report said. “Bielka’s were not.”

Bielka said he was just trying to do the right thing.

“It’s not in bad faith,” he told The News Tribune. “I was concerned.”

He said he went to counseling for several months after what happened.

“I just didn’t know what I did wrong,” he said.

Among other allegations in his claim, Bielka said a company called Parametrix designed a lahar evacuation bridge over state Route 162 that failed to meet Washington State Department of Transportation standards and that the company wanted $75,000 to fix it, which Bielka refused.

“I’m sure they’re happy that I’m gone,” Bielka told The News Tribune. “Parametrix was losing a lot of money while I was there.”

The company ended up fixing the design on its own dime, Bielka said.

Representatives for the company did not respond to The News Tribune’s requests for comment.

The city posted on Facebook Sept. 12 that construction of the bridge will start in October.