Illegal dumping costs the City over $1,000,000 each year to clean up. The Trash Task Force was created in April of 1995 to work on combating the problem. One component of the program is the hiring of off duty police officers to enforce the illegal dumping ordinance. They are supervised by a retired City police detective.

In 2001 the unit expanded its focus to include a Warrant Fugitive section which locates and arrests absconders from the Environmental Court. With this expansion, the Trash Task Force was changed to the Environmental Investigations Unit.

The Environmental Investigations Unit is very effective in reducing the number of illegal dumping incidents in the City of St. Louis. Since its inception, the unit has grown from four investigators to a current staff of ten.

Utilizing recently purchased police radio and surveillance equipment, the unit helps to monitor and control environmental crimes.

The unit averages more than one hundred investigations a month and has more than doubled their annual arrests to more than four hundred. Since its inception the unit has arrested 1600 violaters on 2119 charges.

Since taking on the additional task of locating Environmental Court defendants who have gone warrant, this unit's investigations have resulted in thousands of dollars in court fines being collected by the City.