Meat Inspector’s Canada Trade
Comments Draw Censure Threat

HELENA, Mont. —(AP)— William Lehman is on the front lines of the war to keep America's food safe. In the border town of Sweetgrass, Lehman inspects beef carcasses entering the United States from Canada.

Lehman, who works for the U.S. Agriculture Department, also is a self-described whistleblower. He says the department's current inspection practices do not protect America's consumers from tainted meat.

The Agriculture Department considers Lehman a troublemaker. His bosses told him this fall he has a choice — accept reassignment, take early retirement, or face dismissal.

Lehman's charges and the government's response have touched some sensitive nerves in Montana, especially at a time of depressed U.S. cattle prices and increasing beef imports.

"Bill Lehman is saying little Johnny's hamburger may have kangaroo meat in it, and nobody in Washington, D.C., seems interested," said Jake Cummins, executive vice president of the Montana Farm Bureau Federation. Montana stockmen have pressed the state's congressional delegation to protect Lehman.

The Agriculture Department says Lehman is simply wrong.

"What proof does he have that contaminated meat or tainted meat is making it into the U.S.?" asked Michael Grasso, director of the department's Import Inspection Division and the man who recommended Lehman's transfer. "He has never provided the evidence."

Lehman, 58, has criticized meat import inspection procedures ever since the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement was adopted in January 1989. Under streamlined rules in the treaty, inspections of Canadian meat entering the United States were greatly reduced.

Lehman testified against the changes before Congress, and the streamlined rules were supposedly abandoned in 1992.

But Lehman contends only part of the streamlined rules have actually been abolished, and the zero-tolerance policy for importation of contaminated meat is a sham.

The problem, Lehman said, is a "rear-door rule" that allows meat inspectors to examine only beef carcasses visible to the eye at the rear of a trailer; the rest of the carcasses are off-limits.

Canadian shippers know the rule, he said, and carefully trim their best samples for hanging in the rear. If the few at the back look good, they all get a USDA stamp.

"In reality, I haven't the slightest idea what's in that truck," Lehman said.

Lehman also claims the number of inspections has not kept pace with the growing volume of imported meat. Annual imports of meat from Canada have increased by more than 40 percent since 1989, while the inspection rate has remained constant.

Jacque Knight, spokeswoman for USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service in Washington, D.C., noted that then-Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy acknowledged in June 1994 a problem with the rear-door rule and said: "We ... have a joint Canadian and U.S. task force seeking a solution."

More than two years later, Lehman said nothing has changed. "We are still doing it just as we did when Mr. Espy asked for a change."

But Grasso, Lehman's boss, said Lehman is ignoring changes made by the Canadian inspectors as a result of the task force organized by Espy.

While the rear-door rule still applies, Grasso said, Canadian inspectors now randomly select the carcasses for hanging in the rear. That means Canadian producers cannot beat the system because they don't know which carcass to beautify.

And while the agency still aims at completing a minimum of 3000 "normal" inspections nationwide each year, failure of a particular lot automatically targets the next 15 lots from that Canadian producer for extra, intensive inspections, Grasso said.

Through September of this year, he said, there had been 3747 "normal" inspections and 1421 intensive.

The current flap is not Lehman's first time in the spotlight.

In 1995, the Canadian-owned U.S. Import Meat Inspection Station, where Lehman is stationed in Sweetgrass, sued USDA to force his reassignment. The suit contended Lehman was biased against Canadian meat and rejected shipments unfairly. That tended to drive Canadian exporters to other border crossings, reducing the Sweetgrass station's user-fee income.

In that dispute, the USDA backed Lehman, and U.S. District Judge Paul Hatfield in Great Falls refused in March 1995 to intervene. Lehman stayed on the job.

But while the agency said then that Lehman had good performance ratings, the agency now says he needs closer supervision. Lehman said he was told he can transfer to Detroit, Miami, New York, Los Angeles or Philadelphia.

"This is my home," Lehman said. "Why should I leave?"

The Office of Special Counsel, the Washington agency assigned to protect whistleblowers from retribution, said it has begun an inquiry into Lehman's status, but no action has been taken.