Some would turn up their nose at investigating trash, but Detective Doug Crites sees a chance to make a difference.
There is a truck sitting unoccupied by the side of the road. It's common, perhaps, in town, but not out in Wayne National Forest on the side of a dirt road.
Detective Doug Crites, an employee of the Athens County Sheriff's Office, eyes the truck but does not slow his SUV. Such an encounter might prompt a further investigation during another part of the year, but instead Crites rolls on by.
“It’s squirrel hunting season and bow hunting season,” he said between sips from his stainless steel thermos.
Crites is also hunting for something that never goes out of season. It is hiding just off the road year-round. One moment the SUV is bouncing down the dirt road, and the next it’s screeching to a stop, kicking up pebbles.
“Over there,” he said, and then hopped out of the car with the engine still running.
Sure enough, in some tall grass just off the road, there is a pile of what Crites is looking for: garbage.
Crites begins to pick through the pile. There’s insulation, shingles, some broken wooden beams and scraps of flooring. After a minute, Crites shakes his head.
“There’s no receipt, no leads on who dumped this,” he said.
The county will have to come along later and clean it up. With no leads, it is almost impossible to find the culprit, Crites said.
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Looking for waste in the forest and then looking for leads in the waste is what Crites does two days a week.
Those are part of his duties as the head of Athens County Sheriff’s Office newest division. He’s been on the job for about a month, doing what he can to prevent littering in the area and finding those responsible when it does happen.
He spends the other three days each week with a group of inmates from the SEPTA Correctional Facility in Nelsonville, cleaning up trash along the highways.
This is Crites’ favorite part of the job, he said, because he has tangible evidence that the community is improving.
“The average taxpayer, they see litter on the highway,” Crites said. “They notice when it’s gone, and they like seeing that. I like seeing that.”
While he said his main focus falls on preventing the spread of litter in Athens County and catching those responsible for trash, it takes more than just a ride through the forest.
To that end, Crites has worked with the Athens City-County Health Department and Athens County Commissioner Chris Chmiel to make sure waste ends up in either a landfill or the county’s million-dollar recycling center.
“It’s an educational effort,” Chmiel said. “There’s a lot of open burning. People will be burning this nasty toxic waste in their backyard. We need to help people realize it’s not legal to do this, or to just leave it by the road.”
Chmiel and other members of Athens local government have tried to make getting rid of waste affordable. Recycling drop-off at the center is free, and a bag of trash will set you back $2.
Still, some members of the county are unwilling to take the trip or pay the small fee, so their garbage is left to fester in front yards and roadside ditches.
Sometimes Crites will get a complaint about that trash from a resident, and sometimes he’ll find it when he is making the rounds.
Trash left in someone’s yard is the easiest to deal with, Crites said. In this situation, he confronts the property owner, letting them know that it is cheap to get rid of the trash, much cheaper than the fine they would have to pay otherwise.
“Trash pickup isn’t expensive, about $21 a month,” Crites said. “Just a few cigarette packs less each month, and they’d have the money. But we try to work with them anyway we can.”
When Crites finds trash by the side of the road, it rarely is put there by accident, he said. Often, people paid to clean out a basement or garage will throw trash off the back of the car to prevent paying the county dump, Crites said.
When Crites finds the trash, he looks through it for anything — receipts, mail — that might lead him back to its owner. If he finds a lead, he heads off to confront them.
Often, the suspect will try to make up a story, and Crites will just let them talk until they give themselves away, he said.
“Usually if they’re willing to clean it up, they’re the one that did it,” Crites said.
After a confession, Crites tells the perpetrator to clean up the mess and bring him a receipt showing that the trash was properly disposed. Then, Crites would help them set up trash service.
The investigative side of the job is nothing new to Crites. He worked with Athens law enforcement for 15 years, first as a probation officer in the Athens Municipal Court, then as a street policeman and then with child services.
While working with the sheriff's office, he investigated narcotics and property crimes under former Athens County Sheriff Pat Kelly.
Though the environmental detective position was just revitalized, it's hardly new to the county. The sheriff's office had a similar position briefly under Kelly.
It fell apart about a year and a half ago, according to Crites’ estimation. When Athens County Sheriff Rodney Smith looked to revive the program recently, he turned to Crites.
“Litter’s always kind of been my pet peeve, so when this came up I thought, 'Yeah, I could do this,' ” Crites said.
Crites said his investigative experience made him a good fit for the job and added that he was too old to go back to working the streets.
“In a couple months, I’ll be the oldest guy here,” Crites said.
Crites' salary is $49,000, according to the Athens County Auditor's Office.
But Crites clarified that retirement is still at least 10 years away, and he is committed to ensuring the survival of the environmental department within the sheriff’s office.
“This is something that needed to happen,” Mike Cooper, who works in environmental health for the Athens City-County Health Department, said. “Doug has been great, and both of our agencies work well together.”
The collaboration between the sheriff’s office and health department concerns tasks like what Crites is doing: finding trash that has been dumped illegally.
“We want to step up surveillance,” Cooper said. “Wayne National Forest is a prime dumping spot because it’s sparsely populated. We want to start doing more patrols and catch people, but we’re still in the process of developing that.”
Also in the works is a plan to help prevent construction debris from becoming litter in the first place.
Chmiel says that the county has worked with Ohio University to come up with a use for discarded shingles.
“That’s one of the next things the recycling center wants to work on, turning shingles into asphalt,” Chmiel said.
Crites also must ensure that wastewater from hydraulic fracturing is not illegally dumped. Crites said this is a rare occurrence, and he hasn’t had any problems with this yet.
His job has changed him, Crites said. He notices litter more often and is now more passionate about environmental issues.
As his SUV bounced along the dirt roads of Wayne National Forest, Crites talked of plans to work with student environmental groups to help with clean up. With his new position, he feels he has helped to change Athens County in a way that he could not have done in another position.
“It felt like I was arresting the same guys I had dealt with earlier, and I wondered, 'What am I doing here? Am I actually making a difference?' And with this, I can look around and have evidence that I am,” Crites said.
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