A team from the Petitcodiac Watershed Alliance collected almost three thousand pounds of garbage at an illegal dump site in Riverview Saturday.
Project Leader Sarah Jardine says the marshy area was clearly a large illegal dump site, and they found all sorts of trash.
“Construction garbage, like old decking, wood, shingles, we found tires, and car parts,” says Jardine. “We found appliances, furniture, different carpets, and smaller pieces of garbage, broken glass, broken pottery.”
Jardine adds it is a marshy and boggy area where they were cleaning up on a service road heading out of Riverview.
“So there’s a lot of water, and you have endless life in wetlands,” says Jardine. “And when you see garbage sitting in big pools of water, you know, you can just imagine the type of toxicity that’s being transmitted to all these species.”
Jardine says they are encouraging municipalities and landowners to install cameras at illegal dump sites, adding there are at least 13 well known sites in the Greater Moncton area.
Jardine says at a minimum, if they “could put up at least a sign to say ‘Hey, you’re on camera,’ it might help to deter people from doing it.”
She adds as it stands, they are cleaning up these sites on an annual basis, which she admits isn’t a long term solution as it encourages people to just keep dumping their garbage illegally since they know volunteers will clean it up.
In New Brunswick, individuals can be fined between $500 and $20,500 for dumping, while for companies, the fines range from $1,000 to $1 million.
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(Photo Credit: Submitted by Petitcodiac Watershed Alliance)
