Former Apple Employee Claims Chemical Leak Hazard and EPA Investigation
AppleInsider reports on June 25 that a former Apple employee, Ashley Gjovik, alleges that she was exposed to harmful organic gas chemicals leaked from the company's secret chip factory located near her residence during her tenure and nearly lost her life in 2020.
Ashley Gjovik was fired by Apple in September 2021 on the grounds that she had leaked the company's intellectual property rights. But Gjovik insists this is retaliation by Apple against voices in the #AppleToo movement. She also points out that the Apple office building where she worked is located on a Superfund site that was once contaminated and has reported this to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Today, Gjovik said on the social platform Mastodon that she obtained a copy of the investigation report展开 by the EPA in response to her report. In her post, she wrote: In 2020, I nearly lost my life due to an unknown industrial chemical leak in my apartment. It wasn't until 2023 that I found out that my then-employer, Apple, had been discharging toxic waste from the adjacent 'Skunkworks' chip factory near my apartment window. Gjovik also posted a schematic showing the location of her former apartment and the involved chip factory.
I reported this to the EPA, and they sent environmental enforcement officers to突击检查 the Apple factory in August 2023, Gjovik continued to write. The EPA finally released the enforcement inspection report on Friday and sent me a copy.
TapTechNews noted that the partially blacked-out report and its related documents can currently be viewed on Gjovik's Dropbox account. The report shows that the US Environmental Protection Agency found 19 potential violations at Apple's site in Santa Clara, and most of the problems involve improper labeling and dating of items.
The most serious problem may involve a 1700-gallon CRA hazardous waste solvent tank that was not properly tracked according to relevant Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) procedures. The report states that the related problems and some other potential violations have been corrected after the inspection. However, about half of the potential violations in the report are still listed as unresolved.
It is worth mentioning that despite her unpleasant experience with Apple, Gjovik has previously said that if the company invited her back to work, she would still consider it.