» 2010 » February Ms Sparky

Supporting those who support Ms Sparky (Feb 2010)

Posted on: February 28th, 2010 at 12:26 pm — by Ms Sparky

There is so much more to blogging than just typing your opinions and observations onto a blank page and clicking the “Publish” button. If you’re not doing the necessary behind the scenes networking and research, your post will get lost with the billions of other posts in the blogoshpere that are never read.

One of the most important aspects to the success of blogging is linking with “like minded” bloggers. They link to your posts, you link to their posts and that many more people become aware of the issues that are important you. When bloggers work together more topics can be published. For example, I depend on the DBA Comp Blog to stay up to date on laws, legislation, and personal injury stories of soldiers and civilians. Therefore I will link to what they publish and I refer injured or ill contractors to them. I rely on Qarmat Ali Vets to keep me up to date on the personal and legal stories of the National Guard Troops exposed to sodium dichromate in Iraq. Jill Wilkins runs a facebook page entitled Burn Pits who is doing an amazing job of promoting the issues and concerns of Burn Pit victims. David Isengerg has linked to several Ms Sparky posts in his articles he publishes at the Huffington Post and other sites. (Read the rest of the story here…)

Posted in Miscellaneous. Tags: David Isenberg*, Link Exchange. 28 Comments »

KBR awarded $2.3B LOGCAP IV task order in Iraq after poor performance evaluation (updated 02/28/2010)

Posted on: February 27th, 2010 at 6:42 am — by Ms Sparky

This post has been updated since it was originally published. See below.

The long awaited announcement of the first LOGCAP IV task order to be awarded in Iraq has been made.

KBR has been awarded Task Order 2 under KBR’s LOGCAP IV contract W52P1J-07-D-0009 for the Iraq CTP effort in the amount of $2.345B.

Work is to begin under this Task Order on March 1, 2010.

Interesting…just four days ago KBR received a ZERO award fee for unsatisfactory work and is now awarded a $2.3B contract. Is anyone else gong “What the hell?” (Read the rest of the story here…)

Posted in GOV. CONTRACTORS, LOGCAP III - KBR, LOGCAP-Dyncorp, LOGCAP-Fluor. Tags: CTP Task Order, KBR Contract, LOGCAP IV, LOGCAP IV Transition, Task Order 2. 42 Comments »

Army decision to deny millions in bonuses to KBR is “Right call, but only fist step”

Posted on: February 26th, 2010 at 4:15 pm — by Ms Sparky

American Chronicle – Congressional Desk
February 26, 2010

Former Task Force SAFE Electrical Subject Matter Expert James Childs testifies before the Senate Democratic Policy Committee about the shoddy electrical work performed by KBR. Cheryl Harris, SSG Ryan Maseth's mother, sheds a tear as she listens to why her son was electrocuted and died in his shower in Baghdad on January 2, 2008.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND), who chaired Senate hearings on electrocutions of soldiers in Iraq resulting from shoddy contracting work by KBR, said Thursday the Army´s decision to deny million of dollars in bonuses to the firm for its 2008 work in Iraq “is the right call, but it is only a first step.”

Dorgan chaired two Senate Democratic Policy Committee (DPC) hearings in 2008 and 2009 on KBR´s shoddy electrical work in Iraq. The hearings revealed widespread problems with KBR´s electrical work there including countless electrical shocks including one that killed Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth, and perhaps others, and injured dozens more on their own bases as they showered and engaged in other routine activities.

Following the hearings, Dorgan and Senator Robert Casey (D-PA) wrote the Army asking that it review KBR´s work and the electrocution death of Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth. They also asked the Army to re-evaluate the millions of dollars in bonuses it has routinely awarded KBR for supposedly excellent work, even when the Army´s own evidence made clear it was highly questionable.

The Army´s investigation of Maseth´s January 2008 death found that KBR´s work exposed soldiers to “unacceptable risk.” A theatre-wide safety review that resulted from the Dorgan-Casey request — Task Force SAFE — also found widespread problems with KBR´s electrical work that exposed soldiers to life threatening risks. (Read the rest of the story here…)

The Other Victims of Battlefield Stress; Defense Contractors’ Mental Health Neglected

Posted on: February 26th, 2010 at 7:21 am — by Ms Sparky

On the one-year anniversary of her husband's suicide, Barb Dill breaks down at her husband's tombstone. Wade Dill, a Marine Corps veteran, took a contractor job in Iraq. Three weeks after he returned home for good, he committed suicide (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times / Redding, CA / July 16, 2007).

by T. Christian Miller, ProPublica – February 26, 2010

REDDING, Calif. — Wade Dill does not figure into the toll of war dead. An exterminator, Dill took a job in Iraq for a company contracted to do pest control on military bases. There, he found himself killing disease-carrying flies and rabid dogs, dodging mortars and huddling in bomb shelters.

Wade Dill

Dill, a Marine Corps veteran, was a different man when he came back for visits here, his family said: moody, isolated, morose. He screamed at his wife and daughter. His weight dropped. Dark circles haunted his dark brown eyes.

Three weeks after he returned home for good, Dill booked a room in an anonymous three-story motel alongside Interstate 5. There, on July 16, 2006, he shot himself in the head with a 9 mm handgun. He left a suicide note for his wife and a picture for his daughter, then 16. The caption read: “I did exist and I loved you.”

More than three years later, Dill’s loved ones are still reeling, their pain compounded by a drawn-out battle with an insurance company over death benefits from the suicide. Barb Dill, 47, nearly lost the family’s home to foreclosure. “We’re circling the drain,” she said.

While suicide among soldiers has been a focus of Congress and the public, relatively little attention has been paid to the mental health of tens of thousands of civilian contractors returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. When they make the news at all, contractors are usually in the middle of scandal, depicted as cowboys, wastrels or worse. (Read the rest of the story here…)

Posted in CONTRACTOR DEATHS, DBA-AIG, GOV. CONTRACTORS, Media Coverage, ProPublica. Tags: DBA-AIG, Employee Issues-KBR, PTSD, Wade Dill. 13 Comments »

Law firms join forces to battle KBR on behalf of burn pit victims

Posted on: February 26th, 2010 at 5:58 am — by Ms Sparky

For Immediate Release

Media Contact:
Erin Powers
+1 281.703.6000 – phone
edp@powersmediaworks.com

Law Firms Motley Rice LLC and Burke PLLC Join Forces to Take on KBR and Halliburton on
Behalf of American Soldiers, Veterans and Civilians Exposed to
Burn Pit Hazards

Suit Claims Wartime Contractors Halliburton and KBR Knew Dangers of Burn Pit Exposure

CHARLESTON, S.C. – (February 24, 2010) Motley Rice LLC, one of the nation’s largest plaintiffs’ litigation firms, announces today that it has joined forces with Burke PLLC to jointly pursue claims for clients in the KBR, Inc., Burn Pit multidistrict litigation. The MDL encompasses suits against defense contractors who allegedly jeopardized the health and safety of thousands of American veterans, current service members and former contract employees by knowingly burning vast quantities of hazardous waste in open- air burn pits on U.S. military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yesterday, the Honorable Roger W. Titus of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland provided the parties with briefing schedules and hearing dates, including one on the defendants’ motions to dismiss.

Named defendants include: KBR, Inc. of Houston (NYSE: KBR); Kellogg, Brown & Root LLC, of Austin, Texas; Kellogg, Brown & Root Services, Inc., of Houston, Texas; Turkish-based ERKA Ltd.; and Halliburton Company, of Houston, Texas. The collective claims against these defendants include those for battery, breach of contract, breach of duty to warn, future medical expenses, intentional infliction of emotional distress, medical monitoring, negligence and wrongful death.

“The U.S. government entered into a contract with and paid millions to defendants Halliburton and KBR to ensure that they implemented our country’s strict safety standards for waste disposal. We believe these contractors failed to hold up their end of the deal by ignoring these standards, and now thousands have been unnecessarily poisoned,” stated Motley Rice co-founder, Joe Rice. “Our soldiers and service members understood the potential risk of warfare but never expected the harm to come from those who were hired to protect them.” (Read the rest of the story here…)

Posted in Burn Pit Lawsuits, Burn Pits, CHEMICAL AND OTHER EXPOSURES, GOV. CONTRACTORS, LAWSUITS, Lawsuits Against KBR, LOGCAP III - KBR, Senate & House Committee Hearings, Senate DPC Hearings. Tags: Burn Pits, Hazardous Waste, LAWSUITS, Lawsuits Against KBR. 1 Comment »

Judge dismisses Indiana soldiers’ Iraq suit

Posted on: February 26th, 2010 at 5:18 am — by Ms Sparky

By Jon Murray – Posted: February 25, 2010
IndyStar.com

LTC James C. Gentry in Baghdad died of cancer in November 2009 after exposure to sodium dichromate at Qarmat Ali

A federal judge today dismissed a lawsuit accusing a large defense contractor of concealing the risks faced by nearly 140 Indiana National Guard soldiers potentially exposed to a cancer-causing agent in Iraq.

The ruling did not address any of the claims in the lawsuit, which could still be pursued elsewhere by the attorneys for the 47 Indiana Guard soldiers serving as plaintiffs. Chief Judge Richard L. Young ruled that the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana lacks “personal jurisdiction” over Texas-based KBR and several related companies.

The dismissal was based in part on a finding that the actions at issue in the suit took place outside Indiana even if the health effects are only being felt now. And the KBR companies’ limited contacts in Indiana — they have no offices here but have held contracts in Indiana — amount to an insufficient business footprint.

Mike Doyle, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, said the legal team plans to file a new version of the lawsuit in another jurisdiction as soon as possible, but he did not specify where. (Read the rest of the story here…)

Posted in CHEMICAL AND OTHER EXPOSURES, GOV. CONTRACTORS, LAWSUITS, LOGCAP III - KBR, Qarmat Ali Lawsuits, RIO-KBR, Senate & House Committee Hearings, Senate DPC Hearings, Sodium Dichromate @ Qarmat Ali. Tags: David Moore, Hexavalent Chromium, Indiana National Guard, LAWSUITS, Lawsuits Against KBR, Lt. Col. James Gentry, Qarmat Ali, Sodium Dichromate. 4 Comments »

KBR adds another retired General to its ranks @ $650.00 an hour

Posted on: February 26th, 2010 at 5:09 am — by Ms Sparky

Army tries to halt retired general’s work as KBR expert

By MARY FLOOD HOUSTON CHRONICLE – Feb. 25, 2010
The U.S. Army is trying to stop retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who once led U.S. forces in Iraq, from continuing to be an expert for KBR in a lawsuit against it over civilian truck driver deaths and injuries.

Sanchez is being paid $650 an hour and has reviewed documents and written a report that support’s KBR’s contention it should not be held legally responsible for the deaths of six civilian truck drivers and the injuries of others in a 2004 ambush in Iraq.

The suing drivers and family members contend that KBR should have stopped the convoys when it was warned that attacks would increase on April 9, 2004, the first anniversary of the day allies in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq reached Baghdad.

KBR argues that the military approved sending the convoys out and several laws protect KBR from responsibility in a wartime situation. The Army contracts with KBR to provide transportation, food services and other logistical support. (Read the rest of the story here…)