Note: This information is provided for reference purposes only. Although the information provided here was accurate and current when first created, it is now outdated.

"The mightiest corporation, like the humblest private citizen, must be held in strict adherence to the law of the land." - Theodore Roosevelt

Despite the vastly increased emphasis that EPA's New England office has placed on helping those we regulate prevent pollution and come into compliance, enforcement of the law remains at the core of the agency's work. In fact, without enforcement, many of the agency's innovative programs -- like pollution prevention and compliance assistance -- would be far less effective. Since the agency opened its doors in 1970, EPA has taken over 60,000 enforcement actions and assessed over $400,000,000 in judicial penalties (fines assessed through the court) and over $215,000,000 in administrative penalties (fines assessed by EPA through its own authority). These actions have played an important role in the many environmental successes of the past quarter century. But, like any tool, EPA's enforcement authority needs to be honed and sharpened continually to achieve greater environmental results. The reinvention of the enforcement program at EPA's New England office is centered on two key areas. First, the agency is targeting 80 percent of our inspections on four key sectors -- public agencies, urban ecosystems, industrial sectors, and sensitive ecosystems -- where we believe the greatest environmental and public health benefits can be achieved. And second, EPA has realized that taking a case to court and assessing big fines, as we often have done in the past, does not always yield the greatest environmental results. Instead, the agency is using creative approaches to settle disputes in ways that benefit the environment and involve local communities in reaching acceptable solutions. EPA's New England office is becoming a national leader in using alternative dispute resolution (ADR) to settle cases and to increase community involvement in controversial environmental decisions. ADR encompasses many techniques; in New England we have relied primarily upon mediation, in which a neutral third party helps the negotiating parties reach a mutually acceptable solution. Our ADR experience has grown from a one-day mediation of one penalty case in 1992, to a total of over 30 cases involving a range of statutes and negotiating challenges. We are currently in various stages of mediation in 10 Superfund cases and 8 non-Superfund cases. Building consensus around divisive environmental decisions is a key focus of our current ADR efforts. For Superfund cases such as the Pine Street Barge Canal in Vermont and New Bedford Harbor in Massachusetts, mediation allows more meaningful input into remedial decisions by members of the local community and other interested parties. In both cases, ADR was initiated at a time when relationships had deteriorated to the point where it was impossible to discuss key issues on their merits. Most troubling of all, these communication breakdowns were threatening to block the Agency's ability to respond to significant environmental problems. In both cases, the ADR process has established markedly more productive relationships among the negotiating parties. Clean up measures are now underway with a broader base of support and the parties have gone on to address a wider range of issues than those which originally drove the process. Supplemental environmental projects (SEPs), which can be negotiated as part of enforcement settlements, are excellent means of getting polluters to comply with environmental laws while improving the environmental condition of sites beyond what would be required by law. Cash portions of the penalty that would be paid to the agency are reduced somewhat in lieu of expenditures that provide long-term benefits to the environment. Over the past year, EPA has negotiated 11 SEPs, yielding over $4 million to fund projects that directly benefit the health and the environment of New England communities. In the fall of 1995, an unknown source began to dump large volumes of acid into a municipal sewer system late at night. Unable to treat the strong acid, the city's wastewater treatment plant failed on at least three occasions, releasing a great deal of raw sewage into one of our New England rivers. The treatment plant operator called EPA's Criminal Investigation Division (CID) to ask for help. With assistance from federal, state, and local environmental engineers, CID immediately began tracing the acid back up the sewer line and gathering information on the industrial users of the city's sewer system. Before long, the investigation team had identified the suspected source of the illegal discharge. CID obtained a federal search warrant, placed monitoring devices in the sewer lines surrounding the facility, and waited for the company to take the next step. Late that same night, during severe blizzard conditions, the treatment plant started receiving another acidic dump. When CID's monitoring devices confirmed the source of the discharge, the investigation team entered the facility. Once inside, they found two very surprised company employees in the act of dumping sulfuric acid into the sewer system. This true story is a good example of the type of case EPA pursues as a criminal case. Criminal enforcement authority sits atop EPA's environmental enforcement pyramid, targeting the most significant and flagrant violations. Two factors guide EPA in determining whether to pursue criminal charge: significant environmental harm and culpable conduct. The measure of significant environmental harm includes the presence of actual harm, as well as the threat of significant harm, to the environment or human health. Culpability distinguishes violations that are committed knowingly from those that are the result of accident or inadvertence. Some indicators of culpable conduct include history of repeat violations, deliberate misconduct, concealment, and tampering with monitoring or pollution control equipment. Cases like this one require a team approach, with assistance provided by state and municipal agencies, as well as other EPA staff. This well-focused team was able to monitor the situation and obtain the necessary evidence. EPA's criminal enforcement program has worked hard to establish close partnerships with state and local environmental regulators and law enforcement organizations throughout New England. CID currently has ten agents in New England, with offices in Boston, Massachusetts and New Haven, Connecticut. These agents conduct criminal investigations in all six New England States under every environmental statute administered by EPA. Since the inception of EPA's criminal program in 1982, the number of criminal investigators nationally has grown from 3 to 164. The case load has grown correspondingly. Nationally, the criminal program has recorded more than $300 million in criminal fines and 374 years of actual imprisonment.