Two former Tetra Tech Inc. supervisors have each been sentenced to eight months in federal prison for falsifying records for a nuclear radiation cleanup at a San Francisco naval shipyard, federal prosecutors announced May 3.
The supervisors, Justin Hubbard, 48 and Stephen Rolfe, 65, were employed by Pasadena-based Tetra Tech to oversee a team of radiation control technicians performing remediation at the former Hunter’s Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco.
Tetra Tech was on contract for the U.S. Navy to clean up radiation and other contamination at the 420-acre former shipyard and nuclear warfare research facility, which has been designated a federal Superfund site. Five Point Holdings of Aliso Viejo is redeveloping the site; more than 300 homes out of a planned 12,000 have been completed to date.
Hubbard and Rolfe both pled guilty last year to falsifying documents related to the cleanup. According to the announcement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California in San Francisco, Hubbard and Rolfe pled guilty to collecting “clean” soil samples from outside the remediation zone and substituting them for samples collected from within the zone so that the results would indicate the site had been successfully remediated when it in fact had not.
United State District Judge James Donato sentenced both men to eight months in federal prison; Hubbard was sentenced May 2 and ordered to pay $10,000, while Rolfe was sentenced Jan. 24 and ordered to pay $2,000. Rolfe is currently serving his sentence; Hubbard was ordered to report to prison in July.
“This sentence reflects our commitment to ensure that bogus reports intended to deceive the protectors of our environment will be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Acting United States Attorney Alex Tse said in the announcement.
Charlie MacPherson, vice president of corporate media and communications at Tetra Tech, said the company is “fully supportive of the actions taken by the Department of Justice against the two individuals for falsifying reports at Hunters Point.”
“Tetra Tech vehemently rejects this type of activity and will pursue all legal actions available to recover the harm that the actions of these former employees have caused to Tetra Tech, the Navy, and the local community,” MacPherson said. “We have zero tolerance for violations of established protocols and procedures on any project site.”
Economy, education, energy and transportation reporter Howard Fine can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @howardafine.
