COMMENTARY : You Can Prosecute Polluters, but It Won’t Undo the Damage : Prison sentences and fines will not renew a degraded environment. The lasting solution lies with us, who must prevent it from happening.

After promising starts in the late 1960s and early ‘70s, America, and indeed the world, are again evaluating the environmental costs of industrialized society. This concern is reflected in the complex and burgeoning legal and regulatory framework created by lawmakers in recent years to control environmentally hazardous materials and activities.

One indicator of our increasing concentration on environmental conditions is the treatment of intentional polluting as criminal activity. Prosecutors have been empowered to charge and send to prison those who compromise our environment and health for mere economic benefit.

Most criminal enforcement involves materials known as “hazardous wastes.” These are substances with demonstrated deleterious effects on human health or the environment.

There are more than 800 recognized hazardous wastes in California. Most of them are byproducts of manufacturing processes.

Why are people willing to endanger society by dumping these hazardous wastes illegally? Usually, the answer is a matter of economics.

It is very expensive to send hazardous waste materials to proper treatment facilities. Conversely, it costs almost nothing to dump them in the sewer, the landfill, or simply pour them directly into the soil. Surprisingly, those individuals charged with unlawful disposal crimes are not always operators of small or failing companies that cannot afford the high disposal fees. Many recent criminal defendants have been well-heeled executives heading successful corporations.

Ignorance is another factor in unlawful disposals. Many citizens have no idea that products such as used oil, anti-freeze and oil-based paints are hazardous wastes. Fortunately, Orange County recently opened a full-time household hazardous waste disposal center in Anaheim (at 1131 Blue Gum St.), which will accept all such materials in small quantities free of charge.

Earlier this year, Michael Capizzi, Orange County district attorney, expanded his staff of environmental prosecutors to three attorneys. This has permitted the district attorney’s office to take one of the most aggressive stances against environmental crime of any prosecutor’s office in the state. The approach is simple: Illegal dumping, abandonment or transportation of hazardous wastes is a crime affecting every citizen in the state. People engaging in this activity will be treated as serious criminal offenders.

Frequently, the most environmentally damaging violations are committed by large companies, because they are the greatest generators of hazardous wastes. In the past month, the district attorney’s office has filed charges that led to the arrest of four corporate officers. This reflects a trend toward targeting the organizational decision makers, even though they may not have physically participated in the illegal activity. The anti-dumping laws carry potential sentences to state prison and fines of up to $100,000 per violation.

It is often difficult to apprehend those who are responsible for the illegal disposal of hazardous wastes. Usually, these activities are carried out at night, or in a manner that is hard to detect. Yet the number of unlawful disposals being reported in Orange County is increasing rapidly. There are two principal reasons for this upsurge.

First, private citizens are more aware and concerned about the environment. They report sightings of abandoned chemical containers, pools of unidentified liquids and suspicious activities. Also, company employees are now frequently alerting authorities of improper disposals by employers.

The second reason is the effectiveness of the Orange County Hazardous Materials Strike Force.

Three years ago, the Orange County Board of Supervisors established the strike force to combat illegal environmental activities. It is an association of nearly 25 regulatory and law enforcement agencies with jurisdiction over areas of environmental quality. Strike force members share resources and intelligence in detecting and investigating environmental crimes and have been instrumental in the investigation of every major environmental crime filed by the district attorney’s office this year.

Industrialized areas, such as Orange County, face many threats to the soil, coastline, waters and wildlife. Beneath the county are extensive aquifers containing large quantities of valuable ground water. In recent years, there has been an alarming increase in ground water contamination in the North County. The pollution can be linked to the industrialization of areas such as Anaheim, where there has been disposal of hazardous wastes since early in the century.

Many hazardous wastes, particularly solvents and petroleum products, tend to seep through the soil until they reach and pollute underground water. Once in the soil, these products are extremely expensive to remove. Depending on the extent of contamination, cleanups can take years and cost millions of dollars. Finding the parties responsible for the contamination is difficult because it may have taken decades for the waste to reach the ground water and become detected.

As we move toward the new millennium, issues of environmental quality will become more crucial, more difficult, and more global in scope. We will be forced in some instances to choose between beneficial exploitation of resources and environmental integrity. As the cost of environmental quality controls continue to rise, there will always be the unethical businessman who is willing to endanger the rest of society for personal gain.

The county district attorney’s office, with the help of law enforcement, regulatory agencies and concerned citizens, will continue to investigate and prosecute these cases. But the ultimate solution will not be found in the courts. Fines and state prison sentences will not renew a degraded environment.

The only answer is for each one of us to become in some small way a guardian of the environment. We must learn to prevent the damage, since in many cases we do not have the knowledge or ability to correct it once it occurs.

If we do not take steps to safeguard the environment, the issues involved may not simply involve quality of life, but life itself.