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A recent story reported on the news concerning the fleecing of toll fees by the states toll collection system inspired me to write a review of how and what this corrupt state does to people along with the many lawyer firms in both Pierce and King counties that refuse to help a citizen with a legitimate legal issue because the citizen cannot first come up with $20,000 dollars in order to get justice. I'm a former Pierce and King County employee that first worked at Chambers Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant as a utility worker until conditions at the plant made me sick. I had to open a workplace illness claim and that got me targeted, then railroaded. Seeing the "writing on the wall" I began studying for my Level 1 Plant Operators license, which I obtained successfully in order to find a new job. The Level 1 Operators License landed me a job at West Point Treatment Plant in King County where conditions were strangely and shockingly unsafe due in part to an aging infrastructure inside the treatment plant, but also because of a dangerous culture that existed within the plant due to the hiring of felons by what was described to me as a "secret program" run by the Washington State Department of Ecology to employ felons. I found out about the program due to a verbal slip up from another employee. The odd part of this is that criminal records are public information that can be looked up, which I did. Turned out I was working next to a man that murdered a woman in cold blood. A bit shocking, right? Doesn't matter you say, right, because they've served their time. I agree, but disagree with it needing to be secret program that King County lied about in presenting hiring criteria that stated drug screen/background checks because felons are not hired... What I witnessed was a culture and attitude among these people that was carefree and dangerous. The pencil pushing of important maintenance duties on the part of many that was a regular occurrence and later proven to be the case after the plant was destroyed in a flood, due in part to faulty float switches that had been improperly maintained for a long time and incompetence on the part of operators onsite at the time of the flood. King County was extremely lucky no one died in that flood! I was not present for the flood event that destroyed the plant and left millions of gallons of untreated wastewater flowing into the Puget Sound. I wasn't there for the flood event because I quit due to unsafe conditions, one of which I reported openly to Washington State Labor & Industries. I happened to be on duty the day important work was completed on the plants wastewater disinfection system, which treats water before its discharged out into the Puget Sound. As the disinfection system was being brought back online to work, one of the sodium hypochlorite pumps was in air-lock and not working, which is critical. I was given a directive to loosen the union connection on the pump in air-lock in order to bleed the air out and get the sodium hypochlorite flowing. I should not have been asked to do this very dangerous task. The operators were not trained to open live pressurized pipes containing deadly sodium hypochlorite that can burn you, blind you etc. I go ahead and loosen the union to the pump and almost immediately the sodium hypochlorite begins to flow, "with pressure". The toxic chemical begins to spill out with pressure gaining by the second. With one last burst of strength I was able to turn the union joint enough to slow the leak way down, hand tools accomplished the final torque. This is a situation that NEVER should have occurred. Several days after that event, a section of 10" steel pipe that had been bolted shut with sewage sludge still inside of it when it was sealed, exploded. Biological activities go on inside sludge where methane gas builds up. It's common knowledge in the wastewater industry, but yet somehow these people lost that important fact from their brains when bolting a steel cap onto that sludge pipe. WOW! That was the final straw. I could no longer work in such a dangerous place, so I quit due to unsafe conditions and took my case up with Labor & Industries as well as Unemployment Department. I applied for and began receiving unemployment payments. King County disputed that, which led to an "Administrative Court" date done by phone, with a judge and all parties. Unfortunately at the time of this Administrative hearing I didn't yet have the results back from Labor & Industries investigation concerning the safety violations. I explained that to the judge during the phone hearing, asking for more time in order to receive it, that I believed it would clear me of any wrong doing. The judge denied me that extra time to receive the report from Labor & Industries for whatever reason. The judge sided with King County, which ended my unemployment payments and left me with a bill to pay back of what I had received to that point. About a month after that I received the final results from Labor & Industries. Their investigation showed that the plant operators are not trained to open up sodium hypochlorite pumps, and that it was the plant mechanics who were supposed to perform that task as trained for. Once I received this report I sent it to the Unemployment Department with a letter to dispute the previous ruling. After about another month I logged in to check unemployment and was shocked to see the bill disappeared, but then why wasn't I able to have my payments restored? The form they send to you when you apply for and get unemployment gives you a dollar amount figure that you've "earned" through years of work that will be available for you to receive. Mine was in the $30,000 dollar range. Before they cut my payments I had received a little over $3,000 in help. Why didn't I get the rest of my unemployment? Because this state is the most corrupt in the country. Why isn't the Federal Government addressing crap like this? Because they're also corrupt! I was seriously wronged by both Pierce & King Counties, have the documentation to prove it all, yet because I couldn't come up with $20,000 dollars, you get no justice. My life was totally destroyed by both Pierce & King Counties and yet no lawyer in either Pierce or King County would even look at any of my documentation or proof. Made it through an illness caused by the treatment plant at Pierce County that took months to get over, which required an excess amount of CT scans to my head (sinus infections) to see if the illness was improving. They were found to be liable in the end because I had never suffered from chronic sinus infections. They had to cover my required sinus surgery and missed time from work. That success gets you railroaded from your job with no recourse unless you have an extra $20,000 laying around to get justice. So shocking, the lack of justice in this country. Can't be a great country when you kick the honest, hard working people to the curb, and then deny justice in an obviously corrupt situation involving the workplace where we make our lives happen. That's not America or American, so all you slimy attorneys out there that think in your shallow brains that you're serving some great purpose, or great country, or the "justice" system in your non-justice serving occupation, then you're just not thinking clearly. You don't serve any kind of justice, you only serve greed and disparity. Don't know how you slime ball attorney's live with yourselves, honestly. You do and are doing a great "injustice" to all of us people and also to democracy.