Asbestos discovery stops work on chandler highway project

CITY OF PORTLAND — A massive leak of toxic waste from a construction site caused by the state's largest sewer-related leak has stopped construction along a highway.

City Manager Dan Saltzman told City Council it will be 10 days before work gets to a place where a contractor can start restoring the city's sewers to normal.

The $90 million project has been halted because of the waste-water spill at the East River Street and Niles Ave. interchange, and a city study indicated it could have caused more than $500 million in exposure, Saltzman said.

City Councilman Jim Kenney, who represents the area along Niles Ave., criticized Saltzman's answer in a councilman's report Tuesday. The city also has a new contractor taking over for its sewer-troubled West Burnside property near the interchange, Kenney said.

"This is a huge blow to the economic and economic vitality of the city," Kenney said.

City spokeswoman Julie Gershenson said the city has not received a report on the spill. The state has also not found any evidence of asbestos or other potential health problems, she said.

Saltzman was the target of a citizen pressure campaign that demanded his resignation over the weekend.

Saltzman said his resignation means officials will take a fresh look at an issue that led to a shutdown at his property, near the South King Street and North King Street interchange.

The city has an additional $50 million on hand to work through the rest of the issue, Saltzman said. A new contractor to replace Seattle-based Calpine Engineering Inc., he said, should work through the issue later this month.

The councilman said he will continue to fight against the project and for the sewer-trimming of a project in his ward.

"This is a big job, but I am not taking it for granted," he said.

Saltzman, who served on the council for 30 years before joining City Hall four years ago, also expressed concern about the possible spread of the chemical, and its effects on wildlife and on people living near it. He pointed to the environmental impact of the leak that killed an estimated 70-80 cadavers and nearly 4,000 fish from July 11 to 18 at the site.

Salzman's office said Calpine engineers have not determined whether it's safe for living near the highway.

Mayor Charlie Hales said he has been impressed by both the swiftness of city officials' response and the fact that they are taking the issue seriously and acting swiftly, even after their initial announcement was dismissed by state and the construction industry.

The leak triggered major traffic backups and prompted delays between downtown an 
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Former notw executive recounts phone hacking: 'The whole idea of it was horrible'

A few days later, on March 6, 2014, the Department of Justice announced it had launched a criminal investigation and brought a felony fraud indictment against two alleged employees of Palantir Technologies. The charges accused them of hacking into the Office of Personnel Management computers and stealing hundreds of millions of records.

And that was just the tip of the iceberg.

The charges charged former and current employees with several other crimes, including criminal conspiracy, wire fraud and securities fraud. These were all in connection with the operation, a series of computer intrusions that resulted in the unauthorized collection of massive amounts of customer data from more than 6,800 federal law enforcement agencies, an astonishing breach of confidence, and ultimately, an act of espionage.

That is how a criminal investigation by the Justice Department, the FBI and other investigative agencies of some of America's most-heavily-trusted and politically-driven data storage, processing and storage companies has produced some damning data.

But more alarming still is how an investigation by the Justice Department of one company accused of being behind the breach that resulted in the theft of hundreds of millions of users' data was able to turn up no evidence that anything illegal was taken or anything the security company said had been compromised — but with the exception of a single employee.

The information that the federal government is revealing today is, it seems, the best it has ever discovered. And the biggest, most damning piece comes from the FBI, which had been leading a team of federal and state partners on a broad investigation of Palantir Technologies at the time. The Justice Department's criminal investigation had a grand total of three leads. And that had to do with the company being at least partially responsible for the breach itself — and possibly even for the illegal conduct in which it allegedly conspired with its partners, the state prosecutors and other law enforcement agencies.

In May, the Obama administration ordered the federal investigation to end, but just weeks later, the Obama Justice Department and FBI announced the criminal indictments today. A joint news conference at the Justice Department announced that on April 12, Palantir Technologies was being brought back to the federal government's top-level watchlist, a potentially chilling message to companies seeking to expand their data storage and cloud capabilities.

"We've got a case against Palantir in this case that is far too long, and, really, really significant," said Andrew J. Holder, assistant attorney general for the FBI's national security division.

The charges against Palantir Technologies, now dubbed the "Mikkeller Case," include criminal conspiracy, wire fraud and securities fraud charges. (Palantir Technologies)

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