Super Eco

Photo credit: Wikimedia.org

You’d better “give a hoot” and not pollute when you’re in the Big Apple or the green police will get you. Like their fellow NYPD officers in blue, NYC’s Environmental Conservation Officers carry guns, handcuffs and the authority to arrest polluting perps and haul them to jail.

The toxic laundry list of green violations the city’s 20 or so ECO officers bust polluters for stretches way beyond spitting a wad of gum on the sidewalk. In fact, the Stetson-hat topped enviro-cops dole out 2,000 tickets and criminal (misdemeanor and felony!) charges each year for state and federal environmental conservation no-no's. Some of them pack $5,000-plus fines and up to a year behind bars. 

So lookout, litterbugs. New York’s Greenest are for real and they’re cracking down on:

• Locked or obstructed bottle and can recycling machines
• Motor oil spills from car repair shops
• Fuel or diesel leaks from gas stations and big rigs
• Fossil fuel emissions burped from trucks rolling through low-income, asthma ridden neighborhoods
• Illegal fish and wildlife capture, poaching and sales
• Commercial food contamination and a whole lot more

Big Apple (and statewide) ECO cops are on a mission to: “conserve, improve and protect New York's natural resources and environment and to prevent, abate and control water, land and air pollution.” Though they haven’t always driven hybrid squad cars, green police have protected The Empire State’s wildlife and ecosystems since 1880, so why all the recent media buzz? Chalk it up to my favorite movement, buzzword and color—green—also the shade of every ECO's uniform.

I'm a little jealous, New York. LAPD Chief William Bratton, a NYC native, hasn't mandated a green force here in Los Angeles, where—hack, hack, cough—we desperately need a smog squad to scour our dirty port.