Chris Grotbeck

 

 

To Whom it May Concern,

I was a senior mechanical engineer with Intel for more than a decade.  I designed, installed, operated and maintained much of Intel's air pollution control equipment, among other building and site systems.  The following is an edited version of a statement I made on July 1, 2003, to the New Mexico Environmental Division (NMED), pertaining to its investigation of the Intel CUB scrubber pollution issue that is currently underway in New Mexico.  This statement may be republished, as long as it is used or published in its entirety and not as excerpts that could be misinterpreted or taken out-of-context.

I became aware of a problem with the CUB (Central Utility Building) scrubber in September, 2002, when a peer mechanical engineer in my group, Jeff Kindley, presented a report to the engineers and managers in the department outlining several solutions, their costs, and the potential risks of not performing projects to correct the problem.  Those risks included health hazards and potentially poor public relations with neighboring communities.

Managers of the Intel New Mexico Site Materials and Services department (the department responsible for operations and engineering for all buildings, building systems, and site services, including all of the pollution control systems) chose, at that time, not to perform a project to improve or correct the problem.  Rather, they chose to allow the CUB scrubber to continue running as it had been.  The choice was based on a limited budget and a need to continue production.  Some of the managers aware of the CUB scrubber issue at that time were: Luis Kent Stam IV (mechanical engineering supervisor), John Painter (site engineering manager), and Dennis Menta (Site Materials and Services manager).  It would have been normal practice for those managers to present at least a summary of the report to higher management.  I would assume that, due to the sensitive nature of the problem in this case, the report was immediately presented both to higher management (probably at least to Gary Hensley, America's region SMS manager) and throughout the SMS, Public Relations, and Environmental Health and Safety management groups at the New Mexico Site.  It is now apparent that some of the managers (for example, EHS manager Jim Casciano) knew of the problem shortly after it was first presented then in September, 2002.  I restated my position to Kent Stam in October and I sent a letter referencing the CUB scrubber problem to Stam, Painter, Menta, Hensley, and to Intel's president and CEO, Craig Barrett, in March, 2003.  It is safe to say that the problem was well known by the management at that time.

George Evans, who was working as an industrial hygienist under Jim Casciano, was made responsible for investigating and measuring the stack emissions from the CUB scrubber in October, 2002.  Evans outlined a procedure for taking measurements that would determine not only the chemical makeup of the emissions, but their origin.  Evans was instructed by Jim Casciano to take the measurements in a way that would not give an indication of the origin of pollutants.  Such measurements, of course, would not be able to definitively rule out other sources of pollution.  Mr. Evans objected to the imposed testing procedure and subsequently quit his job because he believed Intel was intentionally, and unethically, covering up the issue.

importance of the proposed projects was reiterated, again citing potential health hazards and public relations risks associated with not performing the projects.  In that meeting, I questioned the management decision not to perform the corrective projects, stating that if there were health hazards and public concerns, the problem should be solved before any other projects were considered to be funded - or that the CUB processes and scrubber should be shut down until the projects could be funded.

The response I received to my statement in that meeting is best described as "cold".  No one said a word and the meeting attendees looked at me as though to ask, "Just whose side are you on, anyway?"  This response was representative of the general atmosphere at Intel with regard to information secrecy related to public sentiment and perception.  Intel did many things to encourage its employees to promote Intel's image to the surrounding communities, including recruiting employees who were residents of Corrales and Rio Rancho and training them to be "ambassadors" to their neighbors.  Employees were encouraged to say positive things about Intel's financial commitment to the community and Intel's proactive environmental programs, but were forbidden from saying certain negative things or from publicly addressing “hot” issues such as that of the CUB scrubber.

Intel had several such programs for promoting its image to the public and spent much energy, time, and money to sponsor newspapers and community functions.  However, amidst all the positive publicity, not a word was published of the CUB scrubber or of any other problems that could have affected the community.  Nor was anything done to correct the CUB scrubber problem.  Still today, more than a year after the problem was first discovered, the CUB scrubber continues to operate and to jettison toxic compounds into the air.  A growing mountain of evidence seems to suggest that the compounds emitted from the scrubber stacks are responsible for the numerous, often serious, illnesses that have been reported in the neighboring community during the last several years, notably by residents in the stack plume dispersion field just downwind of the CUB scrubber.  

I was terminated from Intel less than a month after I had learned of the CUB scrubber problem and questioned the politics surrounding its treatment.  I believe my termination was in retaliation for being vocal about Intel's policy of secrecy with regard to publicly-sensitive issues - specifically with regard to the CUB scrubber, but as well for challenging management on certain employment practices and on expatriate tax and accounting structures that appeared to be unjust and unlawful.

Intel, like many such powerful corporations, expends a great deal of time, money, and energy attempting to diffuse and dilute issues of liability.  Many strategies for doing so straddle the boundary of covertness, legality, and ethics.  In the wake of financial collapse of Enron and Worldcom, and of numerous corporate environmental disasters, these policies must be publicly examined and changed. 

Christopher Lee Grotbeck, P.E.

December 26, 2003

Bocas del Toro, Panamá