the state of New Mexico and the U.S Environmental Protection Agency have launched a new task force to investigate and prosecute environmental crimes in the state now they can range from things like dumping oil or hazardous waste to falsifying records now these acts pollute the state's air and water and put People's Health at risk they're punishable by fines and even jail time but too often they go undetected or unprosecuted the new task force has its work cut out for it our land's Laura paskus talks this week with New Mexico environment department secretary James Kenney and the epa's special agent in charge of the criminal investigation unit Kim beanie secretary Kenny cambaini thanks for joining me today so the environmental crimes task force this is something new for New Mexico why do we need this uh great to be here Laura and good question the environmental crimes task force fills a big void in the state of New Mexico historically Most states environmental agencies work with Federal partners to prosecute civil and criminal violations those that maybe for the viewers are unintentional and those that are intentional um with the lack of having a task force here for so many years we have no barometer as to whether there are criminal activities occurring that would be hurting the environment hurting Public Health operating outside of the regulatory scheme the task force will fill that void and share intelligence and then move towards Prosecuting those individuals or corporations that are criminally violating environmental laws so can you describe for me like what's the difference between uh when we're talking about the environment like a civil versus a criminal violation is this just like a crime versus an accident like what does that mean yeah so I wouldn't think of it as a crime versus an accident because sometimes when an employer doesn't put the necessary resources behind compliance you can have an accident and that could be an intentional means to either make money or avoid the regulatory scheme so I would think of it a little bit more and this is just a general rule of thumb that when a company or person inadvertently violates the law they may have you know the best intention but they don't execute it properly that is often a civil violation maybe they forgot to submit a piece of paper that is important to the environment Department ensuring compliance um or they forgot to do some other activity a criminal violation usually there's intent there's intent to circumvent defraud avoid um and and not play by the rules and therefore a criminal violation in my opinion has a as um more egregious and which is why there's typically not only penalties but sometimes jail time involved samples of either cases you've worked on or incidents you've seen in the region that maybe could happen in New Mexico as well certainly I think the one thing that most environmental crimes have in common is that there is a deliberate decision usually to save money or to make money and it's at the expense of the environment or human health um so release of chemicals or other hazardous pollutants into the air perhaps an industry is falsifying their air emission um or it can be an ethereum from illegal importation of refrigerants and pesticides we're seeing quite a bit of that you would know by usually the label would be in a a different language they're supposed to be in an EPA verbiage on on pesticide products situations where there's fires or explosions because of mismanagement of chemicals um dumping into Waters either state or federal waters or sewer systems that would ultimately cause harm to our wastewater treatment plants and then falsification at wastewater treatment plants drinking water plants so those are just a number of things that come to mind yeah so environmental enforcement is already a challenge in New Mexico and thinking for example of how many oil and gas Wells there are versus how many inspectors there are how is this task force um going to meet the challenges that could potentially be really big yeah again a good question because there is a bit of a David versus Goliath kind of feel from a regulatory standpoint versus the versus um some Bad actors like how do you find those uh and and part of the reason an environmental crimes task force works so well is because you leverage state and federal law enforcement agencies as well as tribal agencies to come together both on the investigation building the case then working with prosecutors to enforce against that entity so the sharing of information actually is synergistic and allows you to expand your resource base so if you think about it where New Mexico environment Department may have a hazardous waste inspector out in the field looking at a facility who's managing hazardous waste if they see something that maybe isn't within their jurisdiction or or just doesn't appear proper they will bring that information back and elevate it back through the task force so there's more eyes and ears out there and more sharing of information and that does help level the playing field between the regulated community and The Regulators so we're talking about protecting the environment this task force also has an interest in environmental justice is that right what's the environmental justice component here yeah absolutely so um I can speak to this not only as a Cabinet secretary but also from my experience when I was with the Environmental Protection Agency oftentimes when you're going into communities to investigate environmental crimes you're going into those that are socio-economically challenged because you'll see you know there's a term fence line communities and those those residents that are closest to the industrial activity are often the ones the most impacted so there's very much an inequity when these crimes occur and those communities because they're not they're already socially economically depressed and that's that's where the task force will spend some I'm looking at that it's an important aspect of leveling the playing field like the most vulnerable should not be the most polluted so I realize that you are not lawyers but I've always wondered like why a company um you know which is profit driven can come in and contaminate groundwater that might have um impacts on people for Generations or can say contaminate groundwater to the point where entire businesses or Industries are are decimated why is it that environmental crimes and things like that aren't often taken as seriously in our society as even something like property theft against an individual it's a good question um it's why I'm in my job to ensure that there is a Level Playing Field and we prevent those right I I don't think it's success when we're putting more money into cleanup I think it's kind of admitting failure um and we should be working to prevent those types of situations from happening um you know the environment Department through most of its programs has the ability to deny permits to Bad actors we're looking into that more and we're utilizing those Provisions in ways we haven't in the past that is you know a philosophy of New Mexico should be racing to the top not attracting the lowest common denominator but I think that's why you need enforcement programs that's why you have to be out there and and ensuring that compliance is occurring day to day week to week month to month and when you're not out there checking that's when some of those problems that can happen or that occur can really leave long lasting impacts on our environment um as you're pointing out so uh I don't know that I have the answer to your question directly but you know bringing more resources to the investigation side that will hopefully prevent Bad actors from becoming worse actors polluting more of our groundwater our land and our air is exactly what this task force will be designed to do so if people see something how do they alert the task force so EPA has a tip line the database that they would enter in is called Echo but if they just Googled EPA environmental complaint it's it should come up right away that's then funneled to our headquarters and goes to the appropriate office Nationwide and then that would be something ultimately even if we're deciding that EPA is is more in the lead we are typically coordinating with New Mexico Edie to make sure that um they're not already on it one and two they usually have a better understanding of the regulatory history there and what's happened in the past which always funnels into our case moving forward and similar New Mexico environment department has a tip line um you can submit it either by phone or by web in English or Spanish all right well thank you both so much thank you