Handcuffed Cop

Around the world, water supplies face relentless threats from industrial waste, agricultural pollution and poor sewage treatment. The battle to protect water purity must be fought not just by national governments but also in every town and village on the planet.

Even in the U.S., which has some of the toughest environmental laws, safeguarding rivers and reservoirs is a constant struggle. While many companies obey the rules, others still try to use waterways as dump sites. American environmental-enforcement officials have been bombed, shot, run over and sued while trying to perform their duties. But the most demoralizing blows invariably come from their employers: the Governor or commissioner who wants to shield a political contributor or recruit polluters to the state by shutting down environmental enforcement. Some environmental cops must dodge both bullets and their bosses to protect the public from pollution.

My personal hero is Captain Ron Gatto of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection Watershed Police. Since 1905 New York City has employed an environmental police force to protect the 1,969 sq. mi. (5,100 sq km) of watersheds that feed the city's upstate drinking-water reservoirs. DEP, which came into being in 1978, has the authority to enforce laws against polluting the watersheds. But records show that prior to 1989, DEP's police never arrested a single polluter. A succession of New York City governments apparently didn't want to antagonize upstate landowners, who wielded great power in the state senate, which approves state aid to the city. Meanwhile, illegal pollution from farms, construction sites and sewage plants steadily contaminated the city's once pristine water.

One DEP patrolman bridled at the practice of leaving polluters unmolested. Ron Gatto is a burly fireplug of a man with 21-in. (53-cm) biceps. He once bench-pressed a trophy-winning 575 lbs. (261 kg). Gatto grew up in Westchester County, just north of New York City. He joined the police in 1982 to fight the polluters who were despoiling the green landscapes and the reservoirs he had fished as a boy. Instead, he recalls, his bosses had him drive around and chase swimmers.

In 1989 Gatto wanted to give tickets to a hospital and a prison for discharging raw sewage into the reservoirs. But a superior pocketed the citations, Gatto says, and they were never delivered. Undaunted, Gatto reported the incident in a hearing before the New York City Council president. His courageous testimony in October 1991 finally forced DEP to get serious about arresting polluters.

Since then Gatto has been personally responsible for more than 150 arrests and citations for environmental crimes, making him one of the world's greatest eco-cops. In 1992 Gatto helped set up the Environmental Enforcement Division within DEP to focus on investigating and enforcing watershed-pollution laws. Gatto's EED has handled more than 1,100 major pollution investigations resulting in more than 400 arrests and citations.