| This month's Big
Dog is Deputy Laren Hudson, Cooke County Sheriff's Office.
Without doubt, Laren is the best environmental enforcement
officer along the Red River in either direction for about
as far as you can see. He has been in law enforcement for
ten years and has served as the Environmental Deputy for
the last four, being a patrol deputy for the six years
preceding. We have watched him work for all that time, and
he is smart, dedicated, and resourceful. Cooke County, and
the entire Texoma Region, is lucky to have him on the job.
Lauren says that he was inspired to get involved in the
environmental enforcement business by watching his
predecessor, Deputy Larry Lange, who began the program,
for about five years. "I became fascinated with what
he was doing, and watched him do some very good things
with this program. He was able to get things cleaned-up in
our county. He must have caused somewhere between seven
and eight million pounds of illegally dumped waste to be
removed before he retired." When Deputy Lange
left, Laren became the man. "The more I get into it,
the more I like it."
To get on top of his job,
Laren has followed the training path laid out by the
T.C.E.Q. He has attended the five-day annual Criminal
Environmental Law Enforcement training as well as advanced
training sessions conducted by the Southern Environmental
Enforcement Network, and has also attended the two-week
EPA environmental crime school at the Federal Law
Enforcement Training Center, Glynco, Georgia. "Too
much good food is the only bad thing about that
place." Now the student has become the instructor,
with Laren helping teach at the T.C.E.Q. annual school as
well as run local training sessions for law enforcement.
He also helps instruct at the Keep Texas Beautiful
"Stop Trashing Texas - It's the Law!" seminar at
their annual conference. "That is a beautiful
experience and something I would like to keep doing. Those
KTB folks are great!"
Laren says that he is
working on an interesting case now that involves over
three million pounds of shingles. "A gentleman was
operating an illegal shingle landfill, and the case
involved him, three roofing contractors, and several
subcontracting crews. What was interesting about this case
was how it has involved Owens Corning in the clean-up
process. They certainly weren't involved in the illegal
dumping, but generously volunteered to help us get this
site cleaned-up." What's remarkable about this
situation is that all of the dumped shingles are going to
be recycled, with none going into any landfill.
"Another thing that came out of this case was that
our new landfill, Texoma Area Solid Waste Agency, has
set-up a special place for waste shingles that will be
collected there for recycling. They didn't have to do
that, but that's the kind of folks they are." Owens
Corning got involved in an interesting way: Laren called
them. "Some of the Owens Corning wrappers at the site
had batch numbers on them and we were trying to track them
to the end buyer, the roofing company. It turned out that there wasn't any way
to track the numbers, but when they found out that their
shingles were involved in the dumping, they wanted to be
involved in the clean-up. When they advertise themselves
as being an environmentally friendly company, it's more
than talk."
Laren reports that both the
County Attorney and District Attorney have been very
supportive, a thing that he inherited from Deputy Lange.
Laren notes that the District Attorney handling the first
big dumping case in southern Cooke County years ago,
Janelle Havercamp, is now Judge Havercamp of the 235th
District Court. "Judge Havercamp's replacement has
been supportive, too. All of the prosecutors I have worked
with have been very supportive and willing to go through
any case I take to them. They have indicted numerous
individuals on felony dumping charges here and a bunch of
misdemeanor convictions. They are on board with it."
"I can't say enough
about the support we get, when we need it, from the
T.C.E.Q.'s Special Investigation team. The State of Texas
comes through, big time, and the E.P.A. has been very
helpful, too." But support doesn't just flow into
Cooke County; it flows out, too. Not too long ago Laren provided technical
advice to Sheriff Kenneth Moore over in Fannin County on a
major burning case, the first major environmental crime to
be handled by the new sheriff's office. The result was
another county first: an indictment for
violating Texas Water Code Section 7.182 Reckless
Emissions of Air Contaminant and Endangerment. This
carries a penalty for an individual of fines from $1,000
to $250,000 and confinement of up to 5 years. Turns out
you can't clean-up an old dump site in Fannin County by
just setting it on fire.
"The thing about
environmental investigations is that you've got to be
creative. The laws can be quite confusing, so sometimes
you have to be quite creative in developing your case. If
you are creative enough and look at all the laws available
to you, sometimes you can get what you want done in a
simple manner."
Laren primarily works in
the unincorporated parts of Cooke County, but also helps
the City of Gainesville Code Enforcement team when
requested, as well as local police departments needing
assistance. "Environmental problems eventually come
to all peace officers."
"One not-so-funny
story involved a local police department setting-up
cameras to try and catch some dumpers in the act on a
remote road inside their city. The dumpers stole the
cameras. Now they would like to go after the guys that
stole the cameras on the theft. This will be tough to
do." Laren, lots of us know that feeling.
Laren's advice to a young
person entering this business: "Be persistent. Be
patient. Do not try to just bull your way through things.
Communicate. Use whatever networking resources you have
available to you. Go to all the schools you can go to. Get
to know all the folks you can get to know, because the
networking is the most valuable thing you can have in this
business."
Deputy Laren Hudson.
March's Big Dog.
You can contact Deputy
Hudson at the Cooke County Sheriff's Office, (940)
665-3471. |
