Garbage dump discovered in park
Published Friday October 30th, 2009
Shamrock: 'It's just ignorant' says an upset deputy mayor
SAINT JOHN - Walking through the dense, undeveloped brush in the north part of Shamrock Park, Peter Hanlon's heart sank when he saw it.
Old fridges, stoves, computer monitors, shopping carts, paint cans and car alternators - all dumped in the future site of a $250,000 mountain bike trail.
"I'm really upset," said Hanlon, the capital project manager for the city's leisure services department.
"I'm a Saint Johner. I hate to see our city looking terrible," he said. "I hate to have to divert money away from developing recreational facilities to clean up irresponsible garbage."
Hanlon was touring the rugged area Wednesday evening with local mountain bike advocates and trail designers when they saw the garbage.
The trash lies in two spots: the brush alongside the Spar Cove Road parking lot, and beside a cliff off Millidge Avenue.
"It looks like it's basically been rolled over the bank over a long period," he said.
It will likely take a lot of extra time and money to get the junk out, he said. The city may have to hire another company to clean up the debris, make it part of the construction contract, or ask experienced volunteers for help.
Common council approved the new trail, which will feature a couple of kilometres of beginner, intermediate and advanced trails in the rough, rocky north quarter of the park, as part of the 2009 capital budget.
It's the first project from the Shamrock Park master plan, which also includes a new synthetic multi-purpose field, a splash pad, new basketball courts and walking trails.
The city also finished a $750,000 upgrade to the park's tennis courts this past spring.
Hanlon hopes to have the bike trails complete by next summer.
But now that he's realized the kind of mess to clean up, the whole process could be slowed down.
"The magnitude of this is disappointing," he said Thursday, wading through piles of old furniture, car parts, an air conditioner, construction debris and even a picnic basket.
"Every dollar spent on this is a dollar that doesn't go into the trail."
He said the city never realized how much junk lies on the park land because it's so far away from where workers cut grass or maintain the tennis courts.
And it's unlikely whoever hauled the junk into the bush will be penalized. Hanlon said from his experience working with watersheds, it's tough to catch people in the act of illegal dumping.
"I can't even begin to wrap my head around the type of person who would dump this type of debris," he said.
Stephen Chase, deputy mayor, said there's no excuse for dumping garbage when there are programs available for people to dispose of their waste.
"I find this practice very unacceptable. It's disturbing. The persons that do this have a complete disregard for the city, whether it's public or private property.
"It's just ignorant."
More The City
Search Articles
More CE Network Sites & Partners:
Comments (15)
All comments are subject to the site Terms of Use. For a full commenting tutorial click here.
Our editorial team relies on filtering technology and our visitor community to identify inappropriate comments. In the event that a site user has submitted offensive content that has evaded our filter, please select the option to Flag As Inappropriate presented within the comment. Thank you for helping to keep this site clean.
There is a guy in a pickup truck that drops his garbage off on Pitt St - obviously from the KV and wants to save a few bucks - cheapo people like that makes me sick!
To the morons who are too lazy to dispose of their garbage properly, you are idiots, plain and simple.