The joint inspection program played a key role in getting to know Will Wike, an environmental engineer who worked on the 3rd floor in the Raleigh field office on Barrett Drive. He had a degree in chemical engineering from North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Tom had been surprised and pleased that Will asked him questions about the Fayetteville Works chemical manufacturing site and the specific fluorocarbon chemicals being released into the water and air. Will was not intimidated by the complex chemistry. Importantly, he was the rare engineer in the agency willing to have a professional discussion about the complicated history of DuPont Fayetteville Works and the North Carolina Division of Air Quality. Unlike so many others, he was not afraid of the conversation. He listened carefully and asked lots of questions. His eyes reflected professional curiosity, not fear. They discussed how joint inspections between air and water, as well as more integration of permits and inspections, might have helped to prevent or short-circuit the 12-year concealment of the discharges into the Cape Fear River.
After a site inspection, Tom and Troy Doby had stopped for lunch at a small restaurant in Apex. He was a staff person in the central office for the the Division of Water Resources. As it turned out, he had worked on a permit for the Fayetteville Works site prior to the Star News investigative reports and the public awareness in 2017. Troy, who had a PhD in environmental engineering from North Carolina State University and knew a great deal about wastewater treatment plants, explained that the information and narrative presented by the Fayetteville Works environmental manager seemed reasonable since he had no access to the large amount of information available to the agency staff working in the Division of Air Quality. He pointed out that the joint inspection program between air and water did not apply to staff in Raleigh headquarters working on water and air permits.
Surprisingly, the joint inspection program had been discontinued in 2017 and agency field staff quickly retreated back to their own silos. Tom was abruptly locked out of the iBeam database. He lobbied his old co-workers in thr Division of Air Quality for read-only access and eventually, after a vote of the "air quality supervisors," was allowed access. Will Wike helped convince the supervisors in the Division of Air Quality that this was the right thing to do. He skillfully 'relayed information back and forth' allowing the bosses safety and plausible deniabilty.
Tom and Troy discussed strategies to persuade agency management to modernize the organization by restoring joint inspections between air and water staff, as well as more integration of permit and inspection responsibilites. Tom was frustrated that the state environmental agency seemed to have stalled in taking the blindfolds and handcuffs off the staff. He viewed the cancellation of the joint inspection program as the agency moving backwards rather than forward. However, Troy was skeptical of the agency's ability to modernize and break up the tight silos and compartments of Air, Water, and Waste. All four bosses involved with joint inspections in the Air and Water groups of the Raleigh field office advocated or supported returning to the old silo system. Troy pointed out that nearly all of the agency's upper-level and mid-level bosses who wanted the new administration to discontinue the joint inspection program were themselves products of the agency's old school, silo system.
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