Lawsuit Alleges Marlborough Water Dept. Mismanagement

MARLBOROUGH, MA — A former Marlborough Water & Sewer Division employee is suing the city, accusing the current and former officials of retaliating against him after he tried to blow the whistle on unsafe practices inside the water department.

The lawsuit was filed last week by Gerald Ouillette, who was hired in 2017 as a primary operator in the water and sewer department. The suit names former DPW director John Ghiloni, Mayor Arthur Vigeant and two other city employees.

Ouillette, a Whitinsville resident, was fired from his job last summer after a series of confrontations between him, Ghiloni and other city officials over a period of almost three years. In the suit, Ouillette's attorneys say he was protected under the state's whistleblower law for trying to publicize threats to public health and safety.

Marlborough officials did not respond to several requests for comment about the allegations.

The problems started in spring 2018, when Ouillette began inquiring about open positions in the department, which Ouillette wanted filled to help perform a variety of tasks, like responding to water main breaks, the lawsuit says. The lawsuit estimated the department had up to six open jobs at that time.

In early 2020, Ouillette and another member of the water department warned Ghiloni about an "anomaly" they found in the city's water pumping system that could reduce water flow to areas of the city at higher elevations, the suit says.

"Ouillette researched the issue and discovered Marlborough’s storage capacity within the city was significantly reduced and that high elevations, including the location where UMass Memorial-Marlborough Hospital is located, could run out of water within hours," the suit says.

The suit also alleges that a January 2020 water main break along the Boston Post Road took more than 20 hours to repair because of low staff levels, and that the city eventually had to hire an outside contractor to complete the repair.

In June 2020, Ouillette warned his supervisor at the time, engineer Christopher LaFreniere, that the city was near its daily pumping capacity of 7 million gallons and that an annual hydrant flushing operation would have to cease. Ouillette also contacted the state Department of Environmental Protection about the problem, the lawsuit says.

Around the same time, Ouillette declined to send a crew to repair a fire hydrant due to a thunderstorm warning. The lawsuit says Ouillette was concerned about safety during dangerous weather because storm runoff might enter the city's system.

On July 9, Ouillette was fired for insubordination for "contacting DEP regarding public safety issues; refusing to follow instructions which would have put the water supply at risk (including continuing the flushing program and sending out a crew to do an excavation with an expected thunderstorm)," the lawsuit says.

Ouillette is seeking to recoup lost wages and compensation for emotional distress, according to the suit.

Marlborough had not filed a response to the suit as of Monday, according to Middlesex Superior Court records.