Washington one of three SW Pa. counties named part of ‘high-intensity’ region for drug activity
Law enforcement officials said Monday they hope targeting Washington and two other Southwestern Pennsylvania counties for extra funding will help efforts to quell what the federal government has deemed crisis levels of drug trafficking and lethal overdoses.
Washington, Allegheny and Beaver counties became the newest region to be declared a “high-intensity drug trafficking area,” or HIDTA, by the White House, said Scott Brady, U.S. attorney for Western Pennsylvania, during a news conference in his Pittsburgh office Monday.
The designation means an additional $1 million in federal funding for the three counties. It can go toward uses including surveillance cameras, police dogs, fentanyl testing kits and equipment for scanning parcels, plus more overtime, equipment and vehicles for local and state officials assigned to help federal agencies in task forces.
Washington County District Attorney Gene Vittone said the new designation would help authorities target the supply of illegal drugs. Washington County already has a dedicated drug task force.
For several years, Vittone’s office also has had one of its prosecutors appointed a special U.S. attorney to prosecute higher-level drug dealers, which to date has resulted in more than 20 convictions in federal court.
“The formation of HIDTA will help expand the pool of cooperating agencies in neighboring counties and states and greatly aid in our intelligence sharing,” Vittone said.
The county coroner’s office reported 97 deaths from overdoses last year, or 12 fewer than in 2016.
The federal Drug Enforcement Administration in Philadelphia recently put the number of deadly overdoses statewide last year at more than 5,400. On Monday, Gov. Tom Wolf renewed, for the third time, his 90-day disaster declaration aimed at the opioid crisis.
Washington, Beaver and Allegheny are now among the counties that form the existing Ohio HIDTA.
The federal program was created by federal legislation in 1988. To date, it’s been given to areas in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Brady said the three counties in Southwestern Pennsylvania logged more than 1,000 fatal overdoses last year, and he called fentanyl – a synthetic opioid much more potent than heroin and morphine – the “prime culprit” in two-thirds of statewide overdose deaths.
Brady, whose office worked with the counties to petition for the designation, said Pittsburgh had been the largest city in the United States that wasn’t part of an existing area named under the program.
He also called the region a “unique intersection of both source cities and federal highways, all of which are coming through or find their destination in Western Pennsylvania.
“We have source cities from Detroit and Chicago, from Philadelphia and Newark in the east, and they travel and they ship opioids and fentanyl across interstates 79 and 76 and 70,” Brady added.
The federal budget earmarked $280 million for the program for the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30.