waterkeeper guest column
Local Government Takes Environmental Law
Into Their
Own
Hands
An unprecedented county ordinance gives a local sheriff the right to enforce state and federal environmental laws.
By Stephen Henshaw
54
L
ake County, Indiana has a long history of heavy industry. Located 30 minutes from downtown Chicago on the Lake Michigan shoreline, the cities of Gary, East Chicago and Hammond struggle to restore brownfield sites and protect unique dune and swale wetlands, marshes and miles of sandy beaches. Unfortunately, companies have relocated, packed up and shipped out, with everything but the pollutants and hazardous wastes left behind. While effective environmental laws exist in the books, they are not strongly enforced. But since the passage of the Lake County Ordinance, authorities that traditionally fight crime and violence are now also enforcing state and federal environmental laws.
Waterkeeper Magazine Winter 2007
“If businesses or individuals pollute the environment, we’re going to prosecute them,” says Lake County Sheriff Roy Dominguez, who created the nation’s first local Environmental Crime Task Force. The Task Force, staffed by detectives, technical experts and environmental attorneys, is armed with a county ordinance that gives the sheriff the authority to enforce state and federal environmental laws. Fines and settlements go into the Lake County Environmental Enforcement Fund, which pays for environmental investigations, cleanups and prosecution costs. Since May 2006, Dominguez’s Task Force has investigated and prosecuted operators of auto salvage yards, defunct refineries, abandoned landfills and companies illegally dumpwww.waterkeeper.org
