Directors with the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) said they were unsatisfied with the provincial response to illegal dumping during the June 25 policing committee meeting, where officials discussed what to do about it.
“One of the sites that I helped clean up was probably where someone had torn the apron off their trailer and it was just all piled in the bush to rot,” said Sechelt director Coun. Alice Lutes, who participated in May 26’s Trash Bash.
The inaugural Trash Bash saw some 14 tonnes of waste hauled out of the Sunshine Coast’s back woods for recycling or disposal.
Items harvested included scrap metals of various types, used mattresses, appliances, construction materials and unsorted recyclables — “and, of course, you can’t prove who did it,” Lutes said. “It might have been someone who was hired to haul it to the dump.”
At the May 24 SCRD board meeting, a recommendation carried to discuss illegal dumping and how to increase enforcement with the RCMP.
Initially, directors seemed intent to write a letter to the province expressing their belief that British Columbia’s response had been inadequate thus far.
“It’s something that’s been a pain for quite a long while and it isn’t getting any better,” pointed out Halfmoon Bay director, board chair Garry Nohr.
He suggested that June 28’s board meeting could be an opportunity to pass a last minute resolution for this fall’s Union of British Columbia Municipalities (UBCM) convention.
Initially, Pender Harbour director Frank Mauro had wanted to request that the province share their current process for dealing with reports of illegal dumping.
“We should have as part of that dialogue what we’d like to see done,” Nohr said. “There should be a discussion. A letter doesn’t do anything.”
Staff were directed to prepare a resolution for Thursday’s board meeting, one that expressed the SCRD’s dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs.
“I’ll second that, because your intention is to send a resolution. And the second part that we get to do at UBCM is to meet with people,” commented West Howe Sound director Lee Turnbull. “We could organize a meeting of MOE on this topic and see if we can get higher up the food chain than we did last time.”
The 2012 UBCM convention is being held Sept. 24 to 28 at the Victoria Conference Centre.
