the municipal police are equipped with quads to better fight against environmental crimes

Faced with environmental crimes, the municipal police want to be able to circulate everywhere. Since the beginning of January, the community of communes Entre Juine and Renarde in the south of Essonne – 16 communes, the smallest of which, Chauffour-lès-Étréchy, has 137 inhabitants – has acquired two quads for its shared municipal police which covers 120 km². Among the objectives of these rural elected officials with the new machines: to fight against the scourge of illegal dumping of garbage in the middle of nature.

Sébastien heads for the Sablière site, classified as a “sensitive natural area”, where the car very quickly shows its limits given the state of the roads. Yet this is where we find one of the largest uncontrolled landfills in the sector, tons of waste over nearly 200 m. “There is construction waste, even cars, details the municipal policeman. So we have engines and we have a bit of everything.”

The municipal police of the Community of communes comes regularly in quad since January to take photos to see new deposits. It is then necessary to transmit the information to the gendarmerie because a procedure is in progress.
Sébastien has been working for the intercommunality since 2010 and for him the quad is far from being a gadget: “We have environments that close over the years. This allows us to go to places where vehicles cannot pass at all.”

These two quads allocated to the municipal police represent an investment of 15,000 euros for the community of municipalities between Junee and Renarde. “We are 16 essentially rural municipalities covered by fields and forestdescribes Alexandre Touzet, vice-president of the community of municipalities in charge of security issues. So we share these issues of illegal dumping, prohibited traffic and uncontrolled deforestation.”

The cost of a single removal of illegal deposits can go up to 1,000 euros for a municipality. It is sometimes necessary to call on specialized companies when it comes to dangerous products such as asbestos. Once back at the headquarters of the municipal police of the Community of Communes, in Étréchy, the manager Ludovic Fontaine takes a quick look at the figures: “We really have deposits that are still substantial, greater than 10 m², and that represents a mass of bulky items.”

“Those who drop off bulky items forget to remove the elements that allow identification or there are reports that are made with the license plate of the vehicles that come to drop off.”

Ludovic Fontaine, municipal police

at franceinfo

The phenomenon has gained importance with confinement. The number of illegal deposits reported and observed by this municipal police doubled between 2019 and 2020.