Burned out cars and abandoned tires litter the landscape. Beer bottles cover the ground and an abandoned snow-covered mattress lies undisturbed.
This isn’t the dump Рit is Coal Creek.
“I really didn’t expect it to be this bad,” said Jim Thorner, Land Superintendent for Tembec, who is visiting the area for the first time this spring. “Some of the old timers in town, if they saw this, would probably be aghast.
“We’ve actually had meetings about shutting it all down and not allowing anybody in anymore because it’s just getting so bad. Unfortunately, and this has happened before, people just break the locks and the gates and go and do whatever they want anyway.”
Thorner argues that while shutting down the roads that lead past the dump and into Coal Creek might deter a few people, there is too much historical significance here to be denied.
Conservation officer Frank deBoon agrees and does his best to try and not point any fingers.
“Some people like to blame out-of-towners or people from Alberta, but the truth is that it is as much a local issue as it is a tourism issue. It’s something that we all need to do and help out with because if we don’t, then it will continue to be a bigger and bigger problem and we just don’t have the budget to fix it all ourselves.”
DeBoon is flabbergasted at the notion that with a dump not 10 minutes away, how people could be so incredibly careless.
“It seems so simple to me. Sometimes the landfill is closed and people drive out here just to dump stuff and then drive back. It’s baffling.”
A stray piece of plywood lies on the ground in the distance. Spray painted on one side is the word ‘Evolve’.
He laughs: “Not likely.”
by Mike Bull
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