The State Water Resources Control Board has taken action against environmental contracting, engineering, and geological consulting firm PW Environmental for overbilling cleanup costs to California’s Underground Storage Tank Cleanup Fund.
The charges of grand theft, to which PW Environmental pleaded no contest, came after allegations that PW Environmental fabricated the books for cleanup work they did at 28 sites in 2007. Five of the sites were in Santa Barbara, one was in Santa Maria, one in Arroyo Grande, one in Los Olivos, and one in Goleta. Lompoc Unified School District is also listed as a cleanup site.
The felony complaint says that PW Environmental billed for “staff, employee, or contractor time not actually incurred.” They billed for full days of vehicle use where they should have only done so for mileage; they also billed claimants for full days after using vehicles at multiple sites. PW Environmental then sought reimbursement for those costs from the Underground Storage Tank Cleanup Fund.
The water board’s Fraud, Waste, and Abuse Prevention unit asked PW Environmental for documentation to support those invoices in 2010. To muddy the water, the complaint alleges, PW Environmental co-owner Kim Jordan then “created a second set of bookkeeping records wherein she re-created employee time records such that they corresponded with falsely padded reimbursement requests.”
Moreover, according to the complaint, co-owners William Jordan and Richard Botke “diverted funds and assets directly to themselves personally, wrongfully commingled funds and assets, and otherwise treated that corporate entity as a vehicle for personal profit and gain.”
As part of their felony plea, PW will pay $19,000 dollars in restitution. They will pay out an additional $281,000 as part of a civil settlement. Furthermore, they are permanently barred from doing work with the state water board or from working at cleanup fund sites.
“The mission of the office of enforcement is in part to prevent fraud against the fund,” said Anna Kathryn Benedict, a lawyer who works for the water board. “It was important for us to take this stand in this situation to send a strong message to environmental consultants that fraud will not be tolerated and that we will pursue it to the fullest extent of the law.”
PW Environmental did not respond to a request for comment from the Sun.
This article appears in Oct 1-8, 2015.