07-08-10 Letter

Dear Assemblyman Blakeslee, Congresswoman Capps, , Senator Feinstein, Senator Boxer, Congressman Bartlett and respective Staffs,

This letter is to inform you of an unfortunate, illegal, and underhanded situation, and to ask for assistance and direction in how best to proceed. I am a former employee of Creek Environmental Labs in San Luis Obispo, which was acquired by Frederick, Maryland based Centauri Labs as of April of this year. Centauri shut down the California lab Thursday, July 1^st.

It should be noted that I have worked part-time for Creek/Centauri for about six months. As scheduled part-time, I was not working Thursday, when the staff was brought in for a conference call with the corporate office in Maryland, announcing the closure. At this time, I was at Disneyland, celebrating my recent engagement with my fiancé. She gets a call from one of my co-workers, telling her that I do not have to come to work on Friday. To this date, I have received no formal termination notice from Centauri.

Friday, the day after the staff was told to close down, was the regularly scheduled pay day. Nothing was deposited into my checking account. I can not contact anyone in the Maryland office to find my paycheck. Additionally, I was not given a final paycheck for the time work the week up until the closure. This is also the case for the other fourteen individuals that were put out of work that day. Our phone calls and certified letters go ignored. KSBY and the SLO Tribune have done pieces on the way that Centauri has closed. Individually, the staff is prepared to submit claims for wages with the California Department of Industrial Relations, Division of Labor Standards Enforcement. I worry that because Centauri no longer operates in California, any claim from a state agency will be useless. If there is an appropriate agency that has jurisdiction in Maryland, please let me know where to proceed.

Additionally, the sudden closure left us with no time to secure the lab. Experiments were ordered to be halted mid way through. As a full-service environmental analysis lab, there are a lot of potentially dangerous chemical substances that are not secured. Barely functioning fume hoods are all that have controlled open containers of hazardous materials and waste, acids, solvents, and bacterial pathogens. I am incredibly worried about the threats posed by Centauri and the manner in which they closed this facility. I anticipate that the power will be shut off, leaving the fume hoods useless and allowing an unknown number of chemicals to mix and react. Furthermore, I fear that the property owner or someone else not familiar with chemicals, hazardous materials and waste, or acids, will enter the facility to clean it out. Any lack of knowledge could easily result in disaster if the wrong chemicals are mixed, or if wastes are improperly sent to the septic tank. I implore that you ask work with the USEPA and CAEPA to ensure that this threatening situation does not harm individuals or the critical environmental resources located nearby.

In summary, I am asking for help in getting due pay for me and my co-workers. Additionally, I hope that you can contact the appropriate agencies to ensure that the facility is secured and no longer a threat to health and environment. Please feel free to contact me if you need any further information.

Sincerely,

Philip Dutton