This ran in The Day over the holiday weekend:

Article published May 30, 2010


Environmental police spread thin
By Judy Benson Day Staff Writer
Cutbacks, early retirements deplete force, down 25 percent since 2001
Not in the past three decades has the state's environmental conservation police force - the khaki green-uniformed officers who stop speeding boaters and investigate boating accidents, tranquilize nuisance bears, check the catches of fishermen and hunters, arrest drunks fighting in state park campgrounds, make sure shellfish are being taken from clean waters and chase after errant ATVs - been this small.

Repeated cutbacks in the force over the last nine years, coupled with the number of officers who accepted the state's early retirement offer last year, have whittled their numbers from a peak of 64 full-time officers in 2001 to its current size of 47, a 25 percent decline.

Number of officers:
1973: 39

1982: 47

1988: 60

2001: 64

2009: 56

2010: 47

Source: DEP

EnCon police by the numbers in 2008:

• Arrests: 2,950

• Warnings: 1,600

• Total incidents responded to: 13,000

• 56 percent of arrests were for criminal activity at state parks

• 19 percent of arrests were for violations of fishing laws

• 16 percent of arrests were for violations of boating laws

• 5 percent of arrests were for recreational vehicle violations

• 4 percent of arrests were for hunting and trapping violations

"We could definitely use more people, with our increased duties and responsibilities," said Capt. Kyle Overturf, division director of the EnCon police force, which is part of the state Department of Environmental Protection.

When he joined the EnCon force 24 years ago, officers weren't responsible for shellfish monitoring or state park patrols, there were fewer boats on the state's waters and ATVs hadn't yet become popular, he said. The force's marine patrols alone cover a vast area, including Long Island Sound, the Connecticut River and lakes and ponds from the northwest corner to the Rhode Island border.

"We've got five people on a day working out of the marine district" in Old Lyme, patrolling the Sound and the Connecticut River, Overturf said.
While many state agencies have shrunk in recent years, the EnCon force has been especially hard hit, given its relatively small size.
"They really need to double their ranks, they're spread so thin," said Grant Westerson, president of the Connecticut Marine Trades Association.
EnCon lost the most employees, percentagewise, of any DEP department, according to spokesman Dennis Schain.

Overall, 150 DEP employees took early retirement last year, bringing the total workforce to 950. Nine of those early retirees were EnCon officers.
"We'd like to try to build the force back up incrementally," said Susan Frechette, DEP deputy commissioner.

Four new officers are in training, Frechette said, but they won't be finished for this summer season. So for now, the full-time EnCon force, supplemented with 35 seasonal officers responsible for patrols only at the six dozen state parks and forests, including those with shoreline beaches and campgrounds, heads into its busiest time trying to cover more with less.

Will the public notice?
"It may take them (the officers) a little longer to get to an incident," Frechette said.
The officers, who are on duty on weekends and during early evening, had traditionally spent a lot of their time on routine preventive patrols of popular boating channels, boat launches and fishing areas, and at crowded state park beaches and campgrounds.

This summer, the officers will have to spend less time on the routine work, like checking vessels for life jackets and enforcing federal fisheries laws, and more time responding to specific incidents. That could range from a lost child at Gillette Castle, a lost hiker in the Pachaug State Forest, a loose moose on I-95, complaints about drug use at a picnic area, poaching reports, boating and hunting accidents and dozens of other types of incidents.

"A big part of their mission has been just to be a presence on the water, to be a friendly face," Frechette said. "It does slow boats down."
Overturf said he expects the force will make fewer arrests this summer.

"The routine patrols is what we won't be able to do as much," he said. "The traditional user groups like boaters won't see us as much. We have to prioritize."

We have a couple retired troopers working for us as SCOs for the summer in the parks...only issue that we have is that they can only work for 2 seasons. New rules after the various newspaper articles related to retired state employees working for the state again....even though they only make $15 an hour.....

Doesn't work that way in CT....with requirements set forth by the police academy regulations you would have to go through 6 months of training. I know other states have deputy warden programs, but CT law doesn't allow it.