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Government Cracks Down on Polluters
"There were some people who assumed that paying fines was part of the cost of doing business," said Mike Gonzales, special agent in charge of the National Marine Fisheries Service Office for Law Enforcement in Long Beach. "But those same people don't want to go to jail." The office has steadily increased its environmental criminal caseload in recent years, from filing six cases in 1998 to more than 36 last year, according to the records obtained by Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. That's a major increase from 1986 through 1997, when only four cases were filed in a region renowned for its gorgeous environment - ancient redwood trees, glacier-carved lakes, lush, fern-lined trails, granite mountains and rugged, sweeping coastline. Those resources coexist with major logging, fishing, recreational and shipping industries. Nationally, federal prosecutions of environmental crimes increased three-fold from 1998 through 2001, from around 300 a year to more than 900 cases last year. "We're starting to see a strong commitment across the country to vigorously enforce environmental laws," said David Uhlmann, chief of the Justice Department's environmental crimes section. "I think there's strong public support for this, and we have every intent of making it a continued priority." The change, which began in the late 1990s, came in large part from environmental leaders and lawmakers increasing pressure on the Clinton administration and the Environmental Protection Agency. Some critics say prosecutors are being overzealous to make their specialized units - like Uhlmann's 32 environmental attorneys - look good. "If you are an ambitious prosecutor and you are put in charge of the environmental crimes division, you are not going to advance if those numbers decline," said Timothy Lynch, director of the Cato Institute's Project on Criminal Justice. Lynch and others say actual crimes should dictate the priorities of the Justice Department. "I don't think that at the beginning of the year prosecutors or detectives should say, 'This year we're going to focus on environmental crimes.' They should wait and see what they need to do," he said. Enforcement is uneven nationally. Louisiana - home to numerous of chemical plants and oil refineries - led the country last year for environmental prosecutions, with more than 500 cases filed. But almost all were minor federal infractions for violating migratory bird regulations. Prosecutors in Wisconsin, on the other hand, have filed fewer than 10 cases in five years, in part due to less stringent enforcement but also because there are fewer prosecutors there to handle cases. In Northern California, the impetus to change came in 1998, when Robert Mueller, who now heads the FBI, became U.S. attorney. At the time, Mueller said he wanted to increase his office's caseload in all areas, especially in environmental cases which had been virtually ignored. He faced additional pressure to do so from environmentalists and other community members after The Associated Press published a story describing the dearth of environmental prosecutions in Northern California. Two years later, Mueller had doubled the number of criminal cases filed. The civil division went from collecting just under $7 million in damages in 1998 to $208 million in 2000, a spokeswoman said. Cases brought by the Coast Guard against shipping companies last year are some examples. One company was caught illegally transporting hazardous materials, another convicted of operating its ship with oil leaking into the ballast tanks, causing a serious risk of explosion, and a third firm pleaded guilty to six felonies and paid $3 million in fines after it was caught leaking oil and lying about it. The new commitment also has resulted in tough punishments for some Northern California residents. Fishermen and hunters have been sent to federal prison for trying to fool authorities about their catch. Manufacturers have been forced to restore wetlands after trying to build over them. In August, three mountain bikers were sentenced to three years probation, a $34,000 fine and hundreds of hours of community service for cutting an illegal trail through the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. "I thought the charges were extremely trumped up," said Marty Beckins, board member of the Marin Bicycle Trails Council. "Nobody has ever been tried for this before, and they were facing federal felony charges. I think the prosecutors must have been pressured by zealots." Carol Yeston, district ranger for the Point Reyes National Seashore, said she hadn't been sure that federal prosecutors would take the case. "They have priorities," she said. "Drug dealers, mafia, all sorts of stuff. So I was pretty excited when they took this so willingly." Federal prosecutors took one out of every four cases brought to them last year in Northern California, a huge increase from past years when more than 95 percent of cases - including trucking companies dumping sewage in San Francisco Bay, pulp mills dumping waste into the Pacific and nuclear power plants cooking their books - were turned away. In contrast, California's other three U.S. attorneys - in Sacramento, Los Angeles and San Diego - together filed 39 environmental criminal cases last year, and turned away 45 others brought to them by law enforcement. U.S. Attorney David Shapiro, who was Mueller's criminal chief before taking his place in September, said the office will continue to be vigilant about environmental criminal cases, despite mounting pressure from terrorism investigations, violent criminals and firearms violators.
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