Finally, he insisted that he and A-L had settled on a liquid oxygen system because it would give the divers plenty of breathing air. But a follow-up navy report by a different analyst, which the Experimental Diving Unit had undertaken after McCauley finished her investigation, told Parker a different story. The report showed that, because of crucial miscalculations, Harald’s system had, in fact, been undersized, leading to a dangerous undersupply. “It appears,” the report concluded, “that a poorly designed breathing system in general caused the failure307.”
The navy analyst noted that human beings breathe not at a steady flow rate but in a pattern of inhalation and exhalation. When people inhale, their demand climbs to three times its average. When they exhale, there is no demand at all. But the calculations for Harald’s system were based on average flow rates. Because there would be times when all five divers were inhaling simultaneously, the calculations should have been based on combined peak flow rates. “It might appear to be unrealistic to assume that every person will be requiring their maximum flow at the same time, especially since they are breathing at different rates,” the navy analyst, Kirk VanZandt, wrote. In fact, it can happen with surprising frequency308.
Through an evaluation that he conducted, he found that three divers doing strenuous work reached their combined maximum flow rate requirements several times an hour, and at some point in every minute they required more than 95 percent of their maximum flow. Plugging in the figures for maximum—rather than average—flow rate requirements showed that “much higher pressures and flows are required by the system than the gas mixer is capable of providing.” Harald, the navy analyst concluded, was either “misinformed or inexperienced309.”
As for just how close Hoss, Riggs, and DJ had come to dying, the navy analyst now put a figure on it. He based his calculations on how long it would have taken the hot shot of nitrogen to travel from the mixer and through the umbilicals to the end of the tunneclass="underline" thirty seconds.
Had Hoss delayed switching to the emergency supply just half a minute longer, there would have been five dead divers.
Parker desperately wanted to talk to Harald herself, but she knew his return to Canada made it difficult to demand his cooperation without getting involved in the thicket of extradition. She wondered if the cold detachment she detected in him from his Deer Island interview could have been a function of shock on his part. But then she uncovered other documents that made her think differently.
These were copies of the e-mail correspondence that Roger had initiated with Harald and his diving consultant in Norwesco’s effort to challenge the OSHA citations. The volley of e-mails, coming just seven months after the divers’ deaths, displayed an odd, often non-sequitur mix of bubbly pleasantries, nuts-and-bolts questions, and steel-belted defense strategy. In one note to Harald in early February, Roger wrote, “Skiing has been good310? Pretty warm here but still great to go up and crank up some speed. On the connection from the hose to the mask, was there a QD or 1/4 turn or was it held together with duct tape?”
A week later Roger e-mailed Harald about the MAP Mix 9000 units, asking, “I’m trying to get an idea311 of how much they are worth as salvage.”
Harald replied, “How was skiing on Friday? There has not been any new snow here for more than a week, but it’s supposed to start tonight. I don’t know if the mixer guy knew what they were going to be used for. When they were delivered I asked him if he was interested in buying them back or reselling them after we were done. He mentioned that he might be able to find buyers for them and we should be able to get a good resale price312.”
By late March, Harald was busy sightseeing. “Just finished a trek in the jungles313 of Borneo last week and am now in Kuala Lumpur,” he e-mailed Roger on March 31, 2000. “Will be here for a few days then it’s off to Thailand. Have not had access to Internet for a while so this is my opportunity to catch up with everyone. How are things in Spokane? Is there still snow? Any new projects? Any news on Boston?”
Nothing in Harald’s tone suggested to Parker that he had been grappling with his role in a double fatality. Nonetheless Roger’s strategizing with him appeared to have been worth the effort. Consistent with its pattern in other cases, OSHA ultimately reduced the fines314 against Norwesco by more than half.
If, at the outset, there had been some doubt in Parker’s mind about the wisdom of pushing this case forward toward prosecution, that doubt was now gone. She had become as much of a true believer as McCauley. Although Parker wasn’t a lawyer, she was well versed in the relevant case law, and it would be her job to recommend to the attorney general and his litigation team whether to press ahead. Like McCauley, she felt strongly that people, beginning with Harald, had to be held to account. As they grew closer, McCauley joked to Parker that she must have been a cop in a previous life, given her dogged detective approach. If that was the case, Parker was still struggling to answer the pivotal question that drove the narrative in all those TV detective shows: What was the motive? Why would Harald have taken these steps that had put the divers at such extreme risk, far above even the high threshold that they accepted as an occupational hazard?
Parker began with the most obvious assumption: money. But as she combed over the contracts and financial records, she was stunned to learn that Harald was simply a worker for Norwesco, being paid just thirty-five dollars an hour. Unlike Kiewit’s contract to build the tunnel, Norwesco’s subcontract actually had no late penalties built into it. As far as Parker could tell, Harald stood to gain no bonus, no piece of the pie. Any financial gains for Norwesco would have accrued most directly to owner Roger Rouleau—one more reason Parker kept him in her sights for possible prosecution as well. (Complicating any case against Roger was the apparent shallowness of his knowledge of the plan’s details. When asked during the OSHA investigation why he had leaned so heavily on Harald to design Norwesco projects, Roger admitted, “Because I don’t know how to do that stuff315.”)
In time, a more likely motivation for Harald dawned on Parker. From his exhaustive resume to his often pedantic responses, he seemed in her estimation to be someone who was deeply egotistical. Kiewit had viewed him as a boy wonder for his innovative work on Lake Mead. And when the powerhouse contractor had found itself in even more of a bind on Deer Island, Harald had jumped at the chance to be its savior once again. Parker envisioned Harald delivering the keynote address at a professional conference, waxing about how he had led a team to accomplish a seemingly impossible task, using a dazzling, experimental breathing system, and making history in the process.
As it happened, when she was knee-deep in her research, Parker was herself asked to speak to a professional gathering. The aim of this occupational health event was to remember workers who had lost their lives on the job over the past year. Parker decided to focus her talk on Billy and Tim, stripping from it any references to regulations or statistics. Her only goal was for the sixty or so people in the audience to feel as though they were in the tunnel with the divers.
307 (Chapter 14, note 28)
“in general caused the failure”: Kirk W. VanZandt, “An Evaluation of the Breathing System Used on the Boston Harbor Outflow Tunnel Project,” Code A52 Coastal Systems Station, Department of the Navy, March 16, 2000, 6.
310 (Chapter 14, note 31)
“Skiing has been good?”: Roger Rouleau to Harald Grob, February 7, 2000.
311 (Chapter 14, note 32)
“I’m trying to get an idea”: Roger Rouleau to Harald Grob, February 16, 2000.
312 (Chapter 14, note 33)
“we should be able to get a good resale price”: Harald Grob to Roger Rouleau, February 21, 2000.
313 (Chapter 14, note 34)
“Just finished a trek in the jungles”: Harald Grob to Roger Rouleau, March 31, 2000.
314 (Chapter 14, note 35)
OSHA ultimately reduced the fines: U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, Settlement and Agreement Between Secretary of Labor and Norwesco Marine, Inc.
315 (Chapter 14, note 36)
“Because I don’t know how to do that stuff’: Roger Rouleau, deposition, 2000.