The Environmental Protection Agency paid $750,000 a year to a warehouse contractor in suburban Washington whose employees watched television and lifted weights while taxpayer-paid supplies decayed in moldy, rat-infested conditions, an internal investigation found. Inspector General Arthur A. Elkins‘ report about the “deplorable” conditions inside the 70,000 square foot facility in Landover, Md., stunned top EPA officials and prompted the immediate removal of the contractor.
The facility had new appliances received in 2007 and new furniture received in 2008 that were unopened along with old federal employee passports with personal information that were kept in unsecured containers. The warehouse had “considerable amounts of unusable, inoperable and obsolete furniture” and outdated stocks of paper and print shop supplies.
Employees set up personal spaces within the warehouse with televisions and decorations, including pin-up posters, chairs and couches, he said. They shielded them from security cameras with dividers and storage boxes and set up a gym with surplus weight-lifting equipment, carpeted with EPA tiles, that was maintained in good working order, Elkins said, even as the rest of the warehouse showed signs of rat infestation and mold. The workers used EPA stationary to record workouts and played music on EPA equipment.
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