Originally Posted By: Griff05
Captain, I have a question on duties of ECO in CT. I am in the pesticide business and we work in CT and NY and my question is why in CT you guys don't enforce pesticide laws ? The DEEP last I read from a Hartford current story has about 1 person to enforce laws in the field with thousands of applicators, many of them unlicensed. In NY the Conservation officers enforce pesticide laws, we get pulled over for spot checks to check chemicals , paperwork and most importantly we have proper licenses. In CT it's like the Wild West with no field enforcement with unlicensed landscape companies and individuals doing improper applications. Do you guys have more duties then NY that you can't do pesticide checks or do hey have more officers per county? Just curious, as improper application of certain insecticides and fungicides are highly toxic to fish so It should be a concern of untrained and un-licensed guys doing applications in CT near our waterways.

Ed


New York operates differently than we do. They handle all the pesticide issues, water pollution/air pollution investigations and inspections. They're not responsible for law enforcement in the state parks (NY State Park Police), the forests (NY Forest Rangers) or boating (again, NY State Park Police), so they have time to do all that stuff.

By statute we are responsible for fish and game, boating, state parks and state forests. We don't have the statutory authority to do the pesticide/pollution areas, that's an entirely different part of our agency. As it is, we don't have enough officers to handle what we are statutorily tasked with, we don't need anything else added to the list!
Captain Keith Williams
keith.williams@ct.gov
Connecticut Department of Energy & Environmental Protection
Connecticut State Environmental Conservation Police