The National Society for Professional Engineers (NSPE) is an organization that represents individual engineering professionals and licensed engineers across all engineering disciplines in the United States.

Their ethics committee evaluates numerous cases of (suspected) misconduct in engineering on the basis of the NSPE code of ethics, and posts their assessments on their website. The case we will be studying is one of their cases, and we invite you to evaluate it on the basis of the KIVI Code of Conduct and compare your assessment to the NSPE Ethics Council’s judgment.

Case Facts

Engineer A is employed as the City Engineer/Director of Public Works for a medium sized city and is the only licensed professional engineer in a position of responsibility in the city government. The city has several large food processing plants that discharge very large amounts of vegetable wastes into the city’s sanitary system during the canning season.Part of the canning season coincides with the rainy season.

Engineer A has the responsibility for the disposal plant and beds and is directly responsible to City Administrator C. Technician B answers to Engineer A.

During the course of her employment, Engineer A notifies Administrator C of the inadequate capacity of the plant and beds to handle the potential overflow during the rainy season and offers possible solutions. Engineer A has also discussed the problem privately with certain members of the city council without the permission of City Administrator C. City Administrator C has told Engineer A that “we will face the problem when it comes.” City Administrator C orders Engineer A to discuss the problems only with him and warns her that her job is in danger if she disobeys.

Engineer A again privately brings the problem up to other city officials. City Administrator C removes Engineer A from responsibility of the entire sanitary system and the chain of command by a letter instructing Technician B that he is to take responsible charge of the sanitary system and report directly to City Administrator C. Technician B asks for a clarification and is again instructed via memo by City Administrator C that he, Technician B, is completely responsible and is to report any interference by a third party to City Administrator C. Engineer A receives a copy of the memo. In addition, Engineer A is placed on probation and ordered not to discuss this matter further and that if she does she will be terminated.

Engineer A continues in her capacity as City Engineer/Director of Public Works, assumes no responsibility for the disposal plant and beds, but continues to advise Technician B without the knowledge of City Administrator C.

That winter during the canning season, particularly heavy storms occur in the city. It becomes obvious to those involved that if waste water from the ponds containing the domestic waste is not released to the local river, the ponds will overflow the levees and dump all waste into the river. Under state law, this condition is required to be reported to the state water pollution control authority, the agency responsible for monitoring and overseeing water quality in state streams and rivers.