U.S. Attorney Announces New Public Reporting Procedure for Environmental Justice and Environmental Crimes

INDIANAPOLIS – Zachary A. Myers, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana, announces that the U.S. Attorney’s Office is implementing new public reporting procedures for environmental crimes and issues relating to environmental justice.

Members of the public who have concerns about environmental matters in the Southern District of Indiana can now report them to the Department of Justice via email to
USAINS-Environmental@usdoj.gov.

The Office is implementing this public reporting procedure under the Department of Justice’s Comprehensive Environmental Justice Enforcement Strategy. This Strategy seeks to provide “timely and effective remedies for systemic environmental violations and contaminations and for injury to natural resources in underserved communities that have been historically marginalized and overburdened, including low-income communities, communities of color, and Tribal and Indigenous communities.”

“Advancing environmental justice and public health through civil and criminal environmental enforcement are priorities of the Department of Justice,” said U.S. Attorney Myers. “We hope that concerned individuals and organizations in our community will partner with us and bring more of these matters to our attention. Together, we will work to reduce public health and environmental harms caused by violations of our laws and regulations—especially in underserved communities.”

The Office’s public reporting procedures complement the other avenues for reporting environmental concerns to the federal government, such as the online portal maintained by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), https://echo.epa.gov/report-environmental-violations.

U.S. Attorney Myers thanks Assistant U.S. Attorneys Taylor Kirklin, the Office’s Environmental Justice Coordinator, and Adam Eakman, the Environmental Crimes Coordinator, for their efforts in protecting the environment throughout the Southern District of Indiana and furthering the Department of Justice’s environmental enforcement goals.