Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: 01/14/2009

Contact person(s):

Media Coordinator, Terry Menshek (707) 565-3099 Media Spokesperson, Assistant District Attorney Christine M. Cook

Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, California

ILLEGAL DUMPING CASE RESULTS IN CRIMINAL CONVICTION

Sonoma County District Attorney Stephan Passalacqua announced today that a new Sonoma County multi agency program to crack down on illegal dumping has resulted in the successful prosecution of its first violator. A motion activated surveillance camera captured Teodosio Valdivia Paredes, age 39, of Windsor, CA, unloading a large quantity of trash from his vehicle along Trenton Road in Forestville, near a tributary of the Russian River. Paredes appeared before Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Dana Simonds on November 12, 2008, and pled guilty to a criminal charge of illegally dumping trash. He was fined $250, assigned 40 hours of community service, and placed on one-year of probation.

District Attorney Passalacqua said, "Our community is blessed with a beautiful landscape and in collaboration with our public agencies we are committed to working together to protect the environment. This case involved the dumping of household garbage in a creek which can harm fish, including endangered steelhead, and other aquatic life.”

Paredes is the first dumping perpetrator to be prosecuted under a new County program called Keep Sonoma Clean, a cooperative effort between the Department of Health Services' Environmental Health Division, the Department of Public Works, the Sheriff's Department and the District Attorney's Office's Environmental and Consumer Protection Unit. The program, which includes a reporting hotline, is designed to reduce illegal dumping, which can lead to the spread of mosquito and rodent borne diseases, environmental pollution and declining property values. Deputy District Attorney Jeffrey W. Holtzman prosecuted the Paredes case.

To report an illegal dumpsite, visit the Keep Sonoma Clean Web site at www.KeepSonomaClean.org or call 877 565 DUMP (3867).