Enforcement Officers to Fight Illegal Dumping in Rural Areas
Illegal dumping, water pollution and illegal burning are not
only three of the biggest problems affecting rural areas of El Paso County,
they are also environmental crimes that often go unreported and unpunished.
Fighting those crimes in the El Paso area has been difficult in the past because
the small incorporated cities within our county have few code enforcement
officers and lack the funds to train them properly.
The Solid Waste Advisory Committee, through the Rio Grande
Council of Governments, has granted our region funds to hire and train code
enforcement and peace officers on Texas
environmental laws.
The purpose of the training is to give officers the
necessary knowledge to pursue actively residents who break environmental laws and
how to properly gather evidence to successfully prosecute in court these types
of offenses.
The Environmental Prosecutor for the El Paso County
Attorney's Office, Cristina Viesca-Santos
will conduct a training session for nearly a dozen code and law enforcement
officers from Anthony, Clint, Alpine and Marfa,
Texas.
WHO: County
Attorney's Environmental
Unit
WHAT: Environmental Enforcement
Training
WHEN: Wednesday July 26th, 2006 @ 1:30 PM
WHERE: Rio
Grande Council of Governments
1100 N. Stanton, 6th Floor Conference Room
For more information about the seminar, please call
Evaristo Cruz at the Rio Grande Council of Governments, at 533-0998 ext. 138.
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Members of the media interested in searching for
polluted areas of the desert need to contact the local law enforcement agencies
directly, or make arrangements with some of the participants.
Environmental Enforcement Training.pdf