Whether this is your first time hearing about this incident, or you are a little bit of a history buff, the case of The Aberdeen Three has caused much debate over codes of ethics in the work place.
Carl Gepp, William Dee and Robert Lentz all worked as managers in the Pilot Plant of the Aberdeen Proving Grounds. This plant’s purpose, ever since World War II, was to develop and test chemical weapons for the military. Carl Gepp was the manager of the entire plant, William Dee was in charge of the weapons development team and Robert Lentz was in charge of developing manufacturing processes for the chemical weapons. In June 1988, these three men were indicted for violation of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
It was found that the plant had been violating many safety precautions such as leaving flammable chemicals in open containers, having unlabeled chemicals, storing highly reactive chemicals in the same room and leaking chemical waste into a nearby river. In 1989, the three managers were convicted of illegally storing, treating an disposing of hazardous waste and were sentenced to three years’ parole and 1,000 hours of community service. Although they were not the ones who actually put away the containers or inspected how things were stored, they violated the IEEE code of ethics in multiple ways.
Though Gepp, Dee and Lentz only violated the first two sections in the IEEE code of ethics, their action can be considered highly unethical. In partaking in this illegal action, they endangered the safety of the public and the environment, violating Section One of the IEEE code of ethics. By neglecting to take steps to prevent this endangerment, they violated Section Two.
Although the Gepp, Dee and Lentz were not the ones who directly handled the chemicals, they were the highest authority who had responsibility over those who did handle the chemicals. They either failed to thoroughly inspect how their employees were doing their jobs, or they failed to report the misconduct. Either way, they were in violation of both the law and the code of ethics.
This situation could have been avoided relatively easily. It would have had to start with the managers paying more attention to the details of how the plant is run. All three could have been more involved in the processes that they oversaw. Lentz’s responsibility was to ensure that the chemicals were correctly processed, which includes storage and disposal. He should have first inspected the processing and then reported the errors. Dee, who was head of the development team, should have more closely overseen the development process, more specifically, how the chemicals were handled. Gepp should have paid more attention to how his employees were conducting their work.
Ultimately, the punishment that the three managers received was very much deserved. Negligence in the specified areas of the chemical development can easily lead to death and destruction. It is obvious that there were multiple ethical faults in how the manufacturing was conducted, and that it was these faults that led to the public and the environment being endangered.
