Former Watershed Management Employees Claim Whistleblower Protection

A pair of former city workers claim in a lawsuit that they were fired because they tried to report corruption in the scandal-ridden Department of Watershed Management.

Gwendolyn Winston and Loren Yarbrough were laid off last year during a round of cutbacks in the department, but Winston says she was let go because she reported an alleged illegal landfill, faulty fences, and other issues to superiors, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. Winston was allegedly told not to send the complaints via e-mail in order to avoid open records requests.

Yarbrough claims in his lawsuit that he was fired for reporting the alleged disappearance of over a dozen department vehicles, among other claims. Yarbrough’s lawsuit claims that he was told by a superior not to investigate the matter.

In March, watershed employees Edward Earl Childs, Oscar Dawson, Ricardo Dupree and Len Antonio Goggins, Jr., were arrested on suspicion that they took metal from the Atlanta Public Works Department’s facility on Claire Drive and sold it. Employees Charles Edwards and William Spaulding were also arrested on suspicion of selling scrap metal and pipes over the course of several years.

The arrests were part of a crackdown on lax security at the public works and water departments, which have allegedly been unable to account for millions of dollars of city property such as industrial water meters, metal piping, and even a backhoe, the AJC writes.