Suffolk leaders are all too familiar with a wooded area behind the Food Lion on Portsmouth Boulevard.

Secluded from the main road, people often drive through and quickly toss trash, including furniture, diapers and clothes.

“This was one of our known hot spots for dumping here in the city of Suffolk,” said Commonwealth’s Attorney Narendra Pleas. “So much so that we got phone calls, we got emails, we got pictures frequently about dumping back here. And it’s been ongoing for years.”

Pleas is leading an effort to crack down on environmental crimes across the city, from residents carelessly dumping or burning household junk to companies polluting waterways with large amounts of sewage or hazardous waste.

“There are quite a few laws on the books that have already existed, have always existed,” she said. “But enforcement is one of those things that we were lacking.”

Katherine Hafner

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WHRO News

Officials hope the Environmental Crimes Task Force will deter incidents through education and increased public messaging. But they’ll also press charges when necessary.

Littering, for example, is a Class 1 misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail or a $2,500 fine, while larger felony incidents could cost corporations up to half a million dollars. Pleas said they don’t want to put people behind bars.

“We’re prosecuting these to recoup the loss, to seek to remediate the damage that you’ve done.”

Currently, the city often bears the brunt of cleaning up these messes, costing taxpayer money and staff resources, she said.

In the past fiscal year, the Suffolk Fire Marshal’s office handled 54 environmental crime investigations, according to a news release.

The task force includes a dedicated investigator, firefighter Racheal Heikens. She said it will take time to shift the city’s typical way of doing things.

For example, officials usually respond to incidents by cleaning things up as quickly as possible.

Now, Heikens wants to be able to show up to a scene and launch an investigation before the evidence is cleared.

“It’s difficult for us to be able to do anything when we have no evidence, we have no leads. We can see things are transpiring but we really have no way to hold anyone accountable,” she said.

“What got us here today is essentially being reactive. Moving forward, that will be proactive.”

That includes reminding people of the law. Heikens said she encounters longtime residents who used to be able to burn their household trash, but that is no longer allowed.

Officials have found hot spots in urban and suburban areas, as well as in rural areas of Suffolk.

Some perpetrators see dumping as a “victimless crime,” Pleas said, but it impacts people who live nearby and farther away, such as when trash washes into storm drains and out into local waterways.

“We want Suffolk to be known as one of those places where you can’t do this here,” Pleas said. “We want to be known for having spaces that are preserved and clean and free of pollutants as much as we can.”

At the Food Lion site, crime has already decreased after police installed a mobile surveillance unit.

Katherine Hafner

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WHRO News