They say time heals all wounds. Merlon Wiggin proves that axiom with his reminiscences. "I think it was the nicest job I ever had," says Wig-gin. "I enjoyed the ability we had to make anything and do everything. We had a great group of people — real pleasures, a real family. It was good working for Drs. Shahan and Callis." Let bygones be bygones, he says. Life after Plum Island has treated him well. He embarked on a private consulting career and worked on biocontainment projects around the globe. He participated in community efforts as president of the North Fork Environmental Council, founded Suffolk for Safe Energy, and now leads the effort to save the crumbling Plum Island Lighthouse. Today, the seventy-three-year-old engineer refuses to surrender to autumnal drift, still working as national expert on the mechanical aspects of biocontainment.
After Wiggin left Plum Island, the Office of the Inspector General dropped their kickback inquiry, and Wiggin dropped his defamation lawsuit and cooperated with the OIG investigation. Participating in a sting operation, he met with executives from the Joseph Morton Company on several occasions at a local restaurant, wearing a concealed wire recording device. "When the man over at the bar took out his cigar case, that was my cue to turn on the wire," Wiggin recalls with a chuckle. After the meal G-men would follow his car, recording more revealing information that would be later put before a federal grand jury. The federal grand jury indicted Morton company president Joseph Battaglia and Samuel Semble— but not chief engineer Merlon Wiggin — on counts of fraud and obstruction of justice. Both Battaglia and Semble were convicted at trial and sentenced to prison for crimes of fraud and conspiracy, having bilked taxpayers out of millions. The Joseph Morton Company then filed for bankruptcy in March 1980 at the same time that the USDA was trying to recover the money it paid the company for its sub-par construction work. Hearing of the bankruptcy, Deputy Agriculture Secretary James Williams said, "Everybody thought it was going to be worked out….I'm mad as seven hundred dollars." Williams should have been about $1,999,300 angrier, because the USDA would be out $2 million in taxpayers' money.
"INCREDIBLE BUNGLING"
The Office of the Inspector General issued a damning 190-page report condemning the USDA's poor management of the Plum Island rehabilitation:
[T]he project, which originally was to have cost $11,000,000, is now estimated to cost approximately $25,000,000 to complete.
The contracting officer… performed only a superficial credit check. Had a sufficient check been performed, the information would have raised serious questions about [Joseph Morton Company's] ability to perform….
[M]anagement knew that the contractor was not: correcting major construction deficiencies; protecting equipment and facilities from deterioration due to the weather; paying subcontractors; and paying workmen the prevailing wage rate.
In addition, they found that the USDA paid Morton 80 percent of the cost when only 58 percent had been completed, and withheld not one dollar for defective workmanship. They found leaky roofs, beams practically rusted through, misaligned foundations, and stainless steel pitted from a leaking wall. They came across an entire incinerator unit ruined, left uncovered in a ditch and half submerged in murky rainwater. In short, they found a total mess. While the Inspector General's Office called for disciplinary action, they didn't name any names.
When the USDA came to Capitol Hill asking for another $13.4 million (a far cry from the $1.8 million Dr. Callis told the press he needed at the start) to complete the construction project, the Senate had this to say:
The history of the use of the $10,000,000 [appropriated in 1976 by Congress for the Plum Island rehabilitation] including its management…is a unique "horror story" in contemporary contracting. Although the Committee has, through its normal oversight mechanisms, attempted to keep apprised of the situation, it has been hampered by disingenuous statements of Federal officials, incompetence, and near-incredible bungling.
The Committee believes that given the present situation, with the contractor having been defaulted by the Government and under indictment in a U.S. court, with facilities only partially completed and unusable, with a severe report by the Inspector General, and with a history of the Department's unwillingness or inability to keep the Congress properly informed, firm action must be taken immediately. Our preference would be that all responsible parties be disciplined prior to providing any additional appropriations.
While Congress agreed to appropriate another $10 million to complete the project, the money would be available only after the secretary of agriculture demonstrated to the committee that he was taking "severe disciplinary measures" and legal action to recover funds from the surety company. The USDA promised to act, but apart from Merlon Wiggin, no one else was "severely disciplined."
The money from Washington didn't arrive. First, Dr. Callis announced the construction would be completed, finally, by spring 1981. Then, Dr. Graves estimated, June 1982. Then they simply said "no comment." Congress showed its displeasure with the USDA's negligence by impounding the funds.
Armed with fraud and obstruction of justice convictions, the U.S. Attorney General filed a $14 million lawsuit against Joseph Morton Company's insurer to seek payment on a performance bond. In April 1987, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed a lower federal court's jury award of $10,631,326 to the USDA—$17 million with judgment interest applied — the largest federal jury award in the history of New York State at the time. Rehabilitation of the old laboratory facilities began again, this time with new contractors and under new Plum Island management.
Plum Island's two-year laboratory rehabilitation project took nineteen years to complete. It was finished in 1995.
8
Rift Valley Fever
In and out of rivers, streams of death in life, whose banks were rotting into mud, whose waters, thickened with slime, invaded the contorted mangroves, that seemed to writhe at us in the extremity of an impotent despair. It was like a weary pilgrimage amongst hints for nightmares….I raised my head. The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed somber under an overcast sky — seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness….
Contrary to what the public was led to believe, some animals on Plum Island were kept alive after the virus outbreak. Though the emergency plan that called for the sacrifice of every animal to prevent disease transmission, the animals earmarked for the January 1979 Rift Valley fever project were spared. "The only animals kept alive were the mouse and guinea pig colonies," said Dr. Graves at the time. Dr. Douglas Gregg, a Plum Island scientist working at the time of the outbreak, remembers it differently.
"The Army was there testing sheep," says Gregg. "They had just been vaccinated outside, in the middle of the island, to save space. They were the only animals that weren't destroyed. Those animals were not showing any signs of disease. They were saved, brought into the laboratory, and held there. And they continued experimenting with them there in the lab, which they would have done anyway."