What are the punishments for environmental crimes?
Most of the time, they get fined. A better incentive is having the person responsible arrested—if you can show that the individual knowingly participates or directs people in the act. A lot of times when a business illegally discharges, it’s lack of knowledge. The auto sanders doing work outside—sometimes they just need to be educated. How do you change people’s behavior? You can have all of the brochures in the world, and there are some people who will read them and want to do the right thing. But then there are businesses that routinely build in getting fined as a cost of doing business. There will also be people who will knowingly and willingly break the law. What has been most satisfying to you? About four or five years ago I started looking at some of the construction sites in town. I showed up at one site to talk to the job foreman—I was in a Chevy Suburban environmental crime car with the traditional star on the doors. I started talking to him about what would happen if discharg
