Environmental
 One
of the biggest changes is the addition to our Environmental
Crimes Division as of February 2002. Deputy Mark Somer
began as a part-time employee and quickly grew to full-time
in January 2003. Since the Constable’s Office
began handling environmental crimes and as of June
2004, Deputy
Somer has handled over 875 cases and cleared over 650
cases. Some cases are as minor as a single bag of garbage
thrown into a ditch or field, and other cases result
in felony charges being filed. Constable Szymanski and Deputy Somer have attended
training on a variety of environmental crime issues.
In addition, Constable Szymanski and Deputy Somer have
attended two grant-funded seminars sponsored by Texas
Commission on Environmental Quality (formally TNRCC)
in Laredo, Texas and Biloxi, Mississippi. The training
sessions focused on laws governing trash dumping, landfills,
industrial waste, water pollution and case law pertaining
to both state and federal cases.  Deputy Somer found numerous avenues for funding the
project outside of the county budget. Since 2002, we
have received over $82,000 in grants from our local
Council of Governments, Houston-Galveston Area Council.
Through grants, we received a 2002 Ford Expedition,
office computer, laptop computer, digital camera, and
GPS was just a few of our items.
Recently County Judge John Murrile in conjunction
with Wharton County Commissioner’s Court, turned
over a Community Service Clean-up
Project over to
the our office. Judge Murrile was very successful
with this type of program while Justice of the Peace
in Precinct #2 and in conjunction with adult probation;
Wharton County is being cleaned on a weekly basis,
again at a minimal cost to the taxpayers. This program
has been assigned to the Environmental Division and
my office is in the process of applying for grants
to add additional hours of service and equipment
to this program. The program is headed by Simone
Sanders who oversees as many as 10 to 15 probationers
that are performing their court assigned community
service hours. Each week throughout the month, they
work in a different precinct throughout Wharton County
picking up thousands of pounds of discarded trash,
tires and appliances.
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