Bechtel Lawsuit History: Hanford Fraud, Big Dig, and LNG Deaths

Bechtel Corporation’s lawsuit history is dominated by two mega-settlements — roughly $125 million and $57.75 million tied to the Hanford nuclear waste plant, and $407 million tied to Boston’s Big Dig — alongside worker-death litigation from a 2025 Texas LNG collapse, ERISA fights over its retirement plan, a gender pay settlement with the Department of Labor, and an international water-privatization dispute in Bolivia. Across 36 recorded enforcement actions since 2000, Bechtel entities have accumulated roughly $936.5 million in penalties.¹

Hanford Nuclear Waste Plant Fraud

The costliest strand of Bechtel litigation comes out of the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant at the Hanford Site in southeastern Washington, a facility being built to process 56 million gallons of radioactive waste from Cold War plutonium production. The Department of Energy hired Bechtel National Inc. in 2000 on a cost-plus-incentive fee contract. Two False Claims Act settlements and a set of whistleblower retaliation claims followed.

The $125 Million Settlement in 2016

On November 23, 2016, Bechtel National Inc., Bechtel Corporation, URS Corporation, and URS Energy and Construction Inc. agreed to pay a combined $125 million to resolve False Claims Act allegations. Bechtel’s share was $67.5 million; URS (now part of AECOM) paid $57.5 million.²

The government alleged the companies knowingly charged the DOE for materials, services, and testing that failed to meet nuclear quality standards over a 13-year period. A separate allegation covered Bechtel’s use of federal contract funds to finance a multiyear lobbying campaign aimed at discouraging independent oversight of the project, which the government said violated the Byrd Amendment.³

The case began as a sealed qui tam suit filed in 2013 by three former Hanford managers: Walt Tamosaitis, Donna Busche, and Gary Brunson.⁴ Bechtel denied wrongdoing and said it settled to avoid a protracted proceeding that would distract from the waste treatment mission.⁵

The $57.75 Million Settlement in 2020

Four years later, on September 22, 2020, Bechtel National Inc., Bechtel Corporation, AECOM Energy and Construction Inc., and Waste Treatment Completion Company LLC agreed to pay $57.75 million to resolve a separate set of False Claims Act allegations. Bechtel’s share was approximately $28.875 million. This time the companies admitted the underlying conduct.⁶

Between 2009 and 2019, the government said, the contractors systematically overbilled the DOE for labor by charging for “unreasonable and unallowable idle time” — paying workers who had not been assigned enough work because of poor scheduling, then billing those hours to the government. Management knew about the problem and continued the practice even after learning of an investigation.⁶

Of the settlement, $25.8 million was designated as restitution to the DOE and $13.75 million went to the four whistleblowers who had filed a qui tam complaint in 2016. The companies also agreed to a three-year independent corporate monitor, with up to $10 million in additional penalties for violating the monitoring agreement or providing false information. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Washington called the contractors “repeat offenders.”⁶

Whistleblower Retaliation

Two of the three original relators also pursued individual retaliation claims. Walt Tamosaitis, a research and technology manager at the vitrification plant, alleged he was removed from the project and escorted from his office in 2010 after raising safety concerns. A federal district judge dismissed his Energy Reorganization Act complaint against URS for insufficient evidence, but the Ninth Circuit reversed in 2014, finding “plenty of evidence” that Bechtel and URS had worked to remove him because of his whistleblowing. Tamosaitis settled in August 2015 for $4.1 million, with no party admitting liability.⁷

Donna Busche, another relator, alleged she was fired in retaliation for raising safety concerns. A 2014 Senate hearing revealed that the DOE had not approved her termination and had referred the matter to the Office of the Inspector General. DOE safety culture assessments in 2010 and 2012 had found that some employees at the Hanford plant feared retaliation and were reluctant to raise concerns.⁸

The Big Dig Ceiling Collapse Settlement

Bechtel’s largest single legal payout arose from its role managing Boston’s Central Artery/Tunnel Project. The Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff joint venture oversaw the project for roughly 20 years and was paid over $2 billion. Final cost reached $14.79 billion, up from an initial estimate of $2.6 billion.⁹

On July 10, 2006, a section of the I-90 Connector Tunnel ceiling collapsed, dropping 26 tons of concrete onto a passing car and killing 39-year-old Milena Del Valle. The National Transportation Safety Board found that the ceiling panels had been secured with the wrong type of epoxy, which gradually lost its grip over time — a phenomenon known as “creep.” Designers and construction crews had failed to account for it.¹⁰

In January 2008, Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff agreed to pay $407 million to settle state and federal claims. Another $51 million came from 24 smaller design consultants, for a total recovery of $458 million. The consortium acknowledged liability for permitting substandard construction on I-93 slurry walls and submitting false safety certifications; observing failing epoxy bolts in the I-90 tunnel ceiling without correcting or investigating them; failing to verify contractor labor records, causing overpayments; and failing to institute concrete testing protocols.¹¹ Over $23 million of the payment resolved federal False Claims Act allegations, and over $40 million resolved state False Claims Act claims.¹²

The consortium avoided criminal charges and remained eligible for future government contracts. It also accepted capped liability of up to $100 million for any future catastrophic event in the tunnels through October 2017. Powers Fasteners Inc., the epoxy supplier, was the only entity criminally charged, with involuntary manslaughter, and separately settled with the Del Valle family for $6 million. The family’s wrongful death suit against the consortium was not resolved by the $407 million deal.¹⁰ U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan said the consortium “grossly failed to meet their obligations and responsibilities.”⁹

Port Arthur LNG Deaths and Pending Litigation

On April 29, 2025, at 1:44 a.m., a climbing formwork platform collapsed at the Port Arthur LNG facility under construction in Jefferson County, Texas, killing three Bechtel employees and injuring two others. The dead were Felix Jose Lopez, 42; Felipe Mendez, 25; and Reginald Magee, 41.¹³

Bechtel’s internal investigation, published in October 2025, identified no single cause but flagged several contributing factors. A bracket connection on the formwork was not securely attached, so the platform became unstable once crane rigging was released. Three of the deceased workers did not have their fall arrest lanyards attached to an approved anchor point. The five-person crew had not received the required 30-minute classroom training for that specific formwork system. An experienced foreman and lead hand had been called away to assist elsewhere and were not on the platform when it gave way. The work happened during a night shift, and Bechtel acknowledged “breakdowns in oversight and supervision.”¹³¹⁴

Surviving relatives of the deceased and injured worker Marcos Ramirez filed a wrongful death and negligence lawsuit in Harris County against Port Arthur LNG LLC, Sempra, ConocoPhillips, Fagioli Inc., and other entities. Bechtel was not named as a defendant in that initial suit.¹⁵ A separate wrongful death case was filed on behalf of Reginald Magee’s family, naming Bechtel Energy among the defendants.¹⁶

As of July 2025, Bechtel Corporation filed a motion in Jefferson County to compel the Magee family’s lawsuit into private arbitration and stay court proceedings, arguing that Reginald Magee had signed a binding agreement under Bechtel’s Employee Dispute Resolution Program covering workplace disputes for employees and their heirs. Bechtel, ConocoPhillips, Sempra Infrastructure, and Port Arthur LNG all denied liability. The motion was pending before Judge Mitch Templeton as of July 9, 2025.¹⁷

Bechtel afterward overhauled several safety practices, suspending nighttime formwork jumping company-wide, adding a triple-verification process for bracket connections, and restricting crew composition so that no more than half a crew has less than three months of site experience. An OSHA investigation remained open as of October 2025.¹⁴ OSHA issued Bechtel Energy Construction Services a $61,473 penalty in 2025 for workplace safety violations.¹

Retirement Plan Cases

Bechtel has faced two significant ERISA suits with very different outcomes. In 2011, the company settled a class action in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California for $18.5 million. Two former employees had alleged that Bechtel violated its fiduciary duties by failing to use the size of its 401(k) plan — with more than 17,000 participants — to negotiate lower vendor fees. The settlement required Bechtel to prohibit company affiliates as plan investment managers, enhance fee disclosures, drop retail mutual funds as options, end asset-based pricing for recordkeeping, and competitively bid recordkeeping services.¹⁸

The more recent case went the other way. In May 2024, retiree Debra Hanigan filed a proposed class action, Hanigan v. Bechtel Global Corp., in the Eastern District of Virginia, challenging the company’s $5.1 billion retirement plan. Hanigan alleged that Bechtel fiduciaries breached their duties by defaulting participants into a managed account program from Edelman Financial Engines that functioned as an “essentially expensive target-date fund” without added value. Managed account fees averaged $320 per participant per year, the suit said, compared with $24 to $29 without the service, costing participants about $4.7 million a year in extra fees and more than $23.5 million in cumulative losses.¹⁹

Judge Anthony J. Trenga dismissed the case twice. The first dismissal came in October 2024 for failure to present plausible claims with meaningful benchmarks. Hanigan filed an amended complaint, but Judge Trenga dismissed it again on January 10, 2025, with prejudice. The court held that target-date funds are not an appropriate comparison for managed accounts, which use a broader set of data points beyond age and retirement date, including risk tolerance, outside assets, salary, and social security income. Class certification for roughly 7,000 participants was denied as moot.²⁰

Gender Pay Discrimination

In June 2021, Bechtel Oil, Gas and Chemicals Inc. entered into a conciliation agreement with the Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs to resolve allegations that the company paid 22 female employees at its Houston office less than comparable male employees. The affected staff included civil, structural, and architectural engineers along with control systems and electrical engineers. The alleged disparities dated back to at least April 2013.²¹

Bechtel agreed to pay $200,000 in back wages and interest and set aside another $50,000 for salary adjustments for female employees in engineering job titles. The company also agreed to revise its compensation policies, improve recordkeeping, and submit a progress report. Bechtel denied the allegations but accepted the terms to avoid enforcement proceedings.²²

The Bolivia Water Dispute

One of Bechtel’s most internationally visible disputes arose from the privatization of water services in Cochabamba, Bolivia. After Bechtel’s subsidiary took over the city’s water system, steep rate increases triggered mass protests in 2000, and the Bolivian government cancelled the concession. Bechtel and co-investor Abengoa filed a claim at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), initially seeking at least $50 million in damages, a figure that combined recovery of their investment (less than $1 million) and projected lost profits.²³

After four years of international public pressure, Bechtel and Abengoa formally abandoned the ICSID claim on January 19, 2006, accepting a token payment of two bolivianos, roughly 30 cents. The companies said in a joint statement that they were blameless and that the concession had been terminated because of civil unrest rather than any fault of the shareholders.²⁴

Total Penalties Across Enforcement Actions

According to Good Jobs First’s Violation Tracker, Bechtel entities have accumulated approximately $936.5 million in penalties across 36 recorded enforcement actions since 2000. Government contracting violations account for over $911 million across four records, driven mostly by the Big Dig and Hanford settlements. There are also 22 safety-related records totaling about $5.7 million, 13 of them involving nuclear safety violations, and nine employment-related records totaling about $19.4 million.¹

1
Good Jobs First. Bechtel Violation Tracker
2
KATU. Feds: Hanford Contractors to Pay $125 Million Settlement
3
Federal Times. Energy Department Contractors to Pay $125M for Mischarges, Misapplied Funds
4
Center for Public Integrity. Another Nuclear Weapons Contractor Pays Millions to Settle Charges of Illegally Diverting Federal Funds
5
Bechtel. Bechtel National Inc. Resolves Civil Lawsuit Related to Hanford Waste Treatment Plant Project
6
U.S. Department of Justice. Bechtel, AECOM, U.S. Department of Energy Contractors Agree to Pay $57.75 Million to Resolve False Claims Act Allegations
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Type Investigations. Hanford Whistleblower Vindicated, Receives $4.1 Million Settlement
8
U.S. Government Publishing Office. Senate Hearing on Hanford Nuclear Site Safety Culture
9
NBC News. Big Dig Firms to Pay $407M in Settlement
10
WBUR. Big Dig Settlement Announced
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U.S. Department of Transportation OIG. Big Dig Settlement Press Release
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Phillips & Cohen. Big Dig Contractors Agree to Pay $458 Million
13
Bechtel. Port Arthur LNG Incident: What We’ve Learned
14
Engineering News-Record. Bechtel Overhauls Safety Practices After Texas LNG Project Deaths
15
Houston Public Media. Victims in Deadly Port Arthur LNG Scaffolding Collapse File Lawsuit Against Companies
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KFDM. Attorneys Complete Inspections at Site of Fatal Port Arthur LNG Scaffolding Collapse
17
12News Now. Bechtel Seeks to Move Port Arthur LNG Collapse Lawsuit to Arbitration
18
PlanAdviser. Bechtel Settles 401(k) Fee Case for $18.5M
19
PlanAdviser. Bechtel Faces 401(k) Suit Over Default Managed Accounts
20
BenefitsPRO. Construction Firm Bechtel Wins 401(k) Excessive Fees Lawsuit Again
21
U.S. Department of Labor. Bechtel Oil, Gas and Chemicals Inc. Conciliation Agreement
22
Construction Dive. Bechtel Settles Gender Pay Claims With $200,000 Payment
23
CorpWatch. Bolivia: Bechtel Drops $50 Million Claim to Settle Bolivian Water Dispute
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The Democracy Center. Bechtel vs. Bolivia