On Wednesday morning, March 14, the Erie County Water Authority announced that the supervisor of the authority’s water quality lab had been placed on paid administrative leave, where he will remain until the completion of an investigation of an incident that occurred nearly two months ago.

Allegedly the supervisor, Paul Whittam, retroactively changed a test result on a water sample taken at the Dodge Elementary School in Amherst on January 16. The test, according to the lab technicians who handled the sample, indicated the presence of the bacteria E. coli. E. coli outbreaks have made big headlines in recent years, so most people know it’s no minor development: E. coli infections can cause sickness and death. The maximum allowable concentration of E. coli in public drinking water is zero.

Five subsequent tests, mandated by the initial positive reading for E. coli, came back negative, indicating that there was no public health hazard at Dodge Elementary School. The initial positive result, it turned out, had been an anomaly: the result, perhaps, of a minor, non-recurring elevation of E. coli, or a mishandled sample—dirty hands, maybe—or a faulty test.

Nonetheless, according to a complaint filed by ECWA microbiologist Joanne McGrath—first internally with the human resources department at ECWA, and later with the Erie County Health Department, the New York State Department of Health, the US Attorney’s Office and the office of New York State Governor Eliot Spitzer—Whittam decided to eliminate the initial positive reading from the authority’s records, first in his department’s database-generated weekly report and then by altering the handwritten daily chart.

Altering a water quality report is a felony under federal law. It is also scientifically dishonest. In this case, if Whittam did what he is accused of doing, it was also profoundly unnecessary: Subsequent tests had eliminated the presence of a health risk before Whittam altered ECWA records, McGrath said. ECWA’s work in assuring safe drinking water to its customers had been vindicated. Good news. So why fudge the paperwork?

When first contacted about the investigation on Monday morning, ECWA spokesman Matt Baudo didn’t have enough information to issue even a “no comment.” By the end of the day he’d learned enough to get that far. By Wednesday morning ECWA had crafted a public statement:

Recently an ECWA employee made a formal complaint against a supervisor regarding the reporting of a water quality test. This complaint alleged improper documentation of a test result. There has been no allegation that there was at anytime an issue with water quality.

This matter has been thoroughly reviewed. Based on that review, the extensive experience of ECWA’s water quality scientists, consultation with the test kit manufacturer and several retests of the sample location in question, it was confirmed that there were no water quality issues.

The results of these tests have been provided to all necessary regulatory agencies. The ECWA is fully cooperating with all parties on this matter. However, in order to allow for a swift and detailed review by the proper agencies, including the ECWA, we have placed this supervisor on administrative leave until a full review is completed.

Our customers can rest assured that their water is of very high quality and among the safest in the country. The ECWA conducts more than 70,000 water quality tests annually. These tests are performed by professionally trained scientists 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and the results meet or exceed all standards for water quality set by the Environmental Protection Agency and New York State Department of Health. We look forward to continuing to protect the public health of our customers and bringing this matter to a positive conclusion.

The statement avoids addressing McGrath’s principle claim: that Whittam fudged the test results. Whether the paperwork was indeed altered will come out in the investigation, which currently involves the Environmental Protection Agency, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, the Erie County Health Department and the authority itself. (There are some indicators that the investigation is close to a conclusion; McGrath said that on Tuesday morning the EPA’s chief investigator, Doug Knorr, asked her what sort of car Whittam drives. Knorr, of course, declined to discuss an ongoing investigation.)

As for why Whittam did what is alleged, that too may come out in the investigation. McGrath speculated that Whittam did not wish a positive reading for E. coli to appear in the authority’s annual report, which is a public document. “I think he was just embarrassed,” she said.

The whistleblower

Perhaps, McGrath said, Whittam didn’t want to have to use the phrases “E. coli” and “elementary school” in the same sentence, especially in the wake of the fierce public criticism directed at the Erie County Water Authority for its poor handling of October’s freak snowstorm. (At the time a senior county official told Artvoice that ECWA’s lack of preparedness, poor communications and inaction nearly resulted in a county-wide public health crisis.) The water authority has long borne a reputation as a patronage den, staffed at the administrative levels by individuals hired for their political connections rather than their professional credentials.

“I was already unpopular at work before this,” McGrath told Artvoice. “I’ve been outspoken against patronage hiring and the hiring of people without the credentials to do their jobs…no one is allowed to obtain the credentials of people in upper management because they don’t have any…and they absolutely hate people with any education.”

The two heads of the water quality lab who preceded Whittam were Ph.Ds. Whittam has only a bachelor’s degree.

The story of the investigation of Whittam’s actions has been circulating among the media for at least a week. Artvoice learned the story last week when it received a copy of a narrative describing the incident. That narrative apparently kicked off the external investigation of Whittam’s actions, and it led Artvoice to McGrath. Originally she asked for anonymity, which Artvoice was prepared to give. She is currently seeking to end her employment there, and is afraid ECWA will find a way to fire her for cause because of the unwanted attention her complaint has brought. She feels she has already been subject to retribution from her superiors. (More on that later.)

At the late last minute, however, McGrath learned that the News planned on printing her name, though she had expressly asked the paper not to. After News reporter Matthew Spina learned that she had spoken to both this paper and WIVB-TV, McGrath said, Spina called and told her angrily that he was going to use her name regardless of her fears of retribution from her bosses. She complained to Spina’s bosses, but to no avail, and so freed us to identify her by name as well.

The events of January 16 and thereafter

But this story isn’t about a News reporter blowing his sources. According to the narrative, events unfolded like this:

■ On January 16, a water sample was taken at Dodge Elementary School in Amherst—“Site 165” in the water authority’s list of regular testing sites. Samples are taken from the school several times in the course of a year, and several water samples are taken from locations throughout the county each day.

■ The sample was taken to the authority’s water quality lab in Lackawanna, where a lab technician, Jim Dolce, subjected the study to a standard battery of tests, including the Colilert test, designed by the IDEXX company to test for coliform bacteria, including E. coli. The test produces two indicators that scientists use to detect the presence of coliform bacteria: color and fluorescence. Dolce found that indicators suggested a positive reading for coliform bacteria in general and E. coli specifically.

■ Dolce informed McGrath, in the presence of a senior chemist named Bill Smith—so at that point three people were aware of, and agreed with, the positive reading. McGrath told Dolce to call Paul Whittam, the authority’s director of water quality. Now four people were aware of the finding.

■ When he arrived at the lab, Whittam took a look at the test—which was still in the lab’s incubator—and subsequently expressed reservations: The liquid seemed to have separated, he said, and there was an unusual precipitate. McGrath, who had been using the Colilert test for nine years, took a second look at the sample and reported to Whittam that there was nothing unusual about the sample and that it was a strong, clear positive for E. coli.

■ Whittam remained skeptical and asked her to call the manufacturer and describe his reservations. McGrath did not make that call—“Why would I call the company to tell them their test wasn’t working when it was clear to me that it was?” she said—but Whittam apparently did. He told Dolce that the company had confirmed that the only important indicators were color and fluorescence. Whittam made no further efforts to correct the work of his staff at that point. The matter was dropped.

■ A couple days later, John Bialek, another ECWA microbiologist, produced the weekly bacteriology report—an aggregate of the week’s daily, handwritten lab reports assembled from a computer database. Bialek, too, was aware of the positive E. coli reading (that’s five people) and immediately noticed its absence from the weekly report.

■ Bialek asked Whittam about the disappearance of the positive result, and Whittam said he had changed the result on the database. Told that the original, handwritten laboratory form still indicated a positive result for E. coli, Whittam said he intended to change that form as well.

■ Whittam apparently did so. Artvoice saw a copy of that report; because there are standard notation conventions for such tests, one can tell that the entry has been altered. A negative result is written “<1” while a positive result is written “1.0.” The decimal place is only used for a positive result. The handwritten result for the Dodge Elementary School sample reads “<1.0,” betraying the fact that the “<” had been added after the fact. Whittam did not initial the change, in violation of the lab’s rules, but made a note on the back of the form stating that the degree of fluorescence in the test well was less than the color comparator provided by the company.

Whittam’s opinion, in contrast with the opinion of several members of his staff—who, McGrath says, unlike Whittam, had passed proficiency examinations in the use of the Colilert test—was that the result should have been a negative. So he changed the paperwork in order to erase any trace of a positive reading for E. coli.

No dangerous bacteria. So who cares?

“You’re talking about a lab tech and a supervisor who had a difference of opinion on the reading of test,” ECWA spokesman Matt Baudo explained. False positives happen in the industry, he said. And possibly Whittam was within his rights to alter the results: “We’re not so sure that the changing of that document was improper,” Baudo added. “Because there is substantial supporting documentation attached to those changes.”

As mentioned earlier, the initial positive result for E. coli mandated five additional samples be taken and tested immediately: one at the site of the positive reading and four at nearby test sites to determine if any contaminant had spread. Those five samples were taken and tested negative, according to both Baudo and Kevin Montgomery, spokesman for the Erie County Health Department, which exercises some oversight of ECWA’s water quality lab. Whatever the cause of the initial positive reading, the news was good: There was no public health hazard.

That good news makes Whittam’s subsequent actions seem all the more mysterious—and possibly inconsequential. If the initial test result was wrong or anomalous, what difference does it make if Whittam changed his staff’s work?

One answer to that is offered in the narrative account of the incident that started this investigation and led to Whittam’s suspension:

The consensus of the laboratory staff is that it was unethical for Paul Whittam to change this test result, whether for convenience, the reputation of ECWA, or to avoid dealing with questions from drinking water consumers. The job of monitoring water quality is not a difficult one but is an important matter of public trust. Citizens have the right to know the whole truth about the quality of their drinking water. Laboratory staff have received data integrity training informing us that falsification of data is a violation of federal law.

Indeed, ECWA training materials are specific about the importance of data integrity.

Asked why what Whittam did is important, McGrath responded with another question: If Whittam fudged the data when so little was at stake, what would he do in the face of a potential crisis?

“I have asked that same question,” Baudo responded. “And at this point the authority is not in a position to taint or jeopardizes his integrity.”

Baudo added that he expected the investigation to conclude “sooner rather than later” and that disciplinary action, if any, would be determined by ECWA’s board of commissioners.

When you complain…

Joanne McGrath, meanwhile, feels as if she has already been disciplined. She first raised her objection to Whittam’s actions with ECWA’s director of human resources, Karla Thomas, shortly after the incident itself. Thomas responded to McGrath’s complaint with a letter dated February 28, in which Thomas wrote she had found no evidence of malfeasance, falsification or a coverup.

In a separate letter to McGrath, also dated February 28, Thomas expressed her opinion that McGrath’s behavior in the workplace was disruptive and that she would benefit from counseling. She was ordered to Employee Resources, Inc. on Franklin Street to begin counseling immediately. McGrath hasn’t yet attended a session; she wants a journalist to accompany her.

McGrath, who is on sick leave, has also been locked out of ECWA’s laboratories in Lackawanna. She recently found that her passcard no longer works on the door.

“I think they’re punishing me,” McGrath told Artvoice. On the advice of Doug Knorr, EPA’s special investigator on the case, she is filing a grievance under federal whistleblower protection laws.