On Tabor Mountain, not far from the many residences around Tabor Lake, is an environmental sore spot for the people of the area.
Although it is not a garbage dump, it has become a dumping ground. A neighbourhood group turned their anger and frustration into hard labour this past week to address the problem. Led by Shawn Paterson, Dan Moffat and several of their friends, a group of about 30 people went to work tidying up other people's messes spread all across Tabor Lake Pit on Groveburn Road.
"We are tired of people using our mountain as a garbage dump so we went up there and cleaned it all up," said Moffat. "As we were in there going at it, people were driving in, and we could see the garbage in their vehicles, and they wheeled out again when they saw what we were doing - all of us with shovels and rakes and trucks just daring them to do it. We went back a day later, and new garbage was already there."
Garbage is able to tell stories and the garbage found at Tabor was no different.
"We know some of the garbage in there came from right inside town," said Moffat. "We found the addresses on the mail. Some of it even got the police involved and they found it was connected to organized crime, because in one pile someone had clearly disposed of a bunch of different people's mail they had stolen."
All manner of garbage was evident in the pit. There was household trash, several mattresses, televisions, large kitchen appliances, and prolific amounts of spent casings from all the target shooting that happens inside the pit.
"I don't have a problem with people shooting, but pick up your brass. Pick up the shotgun shells," Moffat said. "We've got the conservation officers on it now, we're really pushing them on that."
"I can understand how you feel seeing the garbage and debris constantly, as it has definitely been a thorn in my shoe as well," Shaun Holahan, area manager for the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure write to the group following the cleanup. Holahan said steps were being taken to curb the environmental degradation.
"Over the past year the ministry has had talks with the RCMP, conservation officers and [road construction company] YRB on how to mitigate the reoccurring problems within the pit area. The ministry will be working with YRB to build new ditches and a large earth berm running parallel to the road to block off access to both sides of the pit. We expect the project to be done at some point during the summer and will protect the interests of the ministry and Regional District while removing the ability for use of dumping and shooting. We hope these planned works will mitigate the problems we've seen in the pit."
Moffat said the cleanup needed the aid of a small yard tractor and a skid-steer tractor, plus many committed people. They filled two pickup dump-trailers to capacity, plus the boxes of many trucks. He said his own truck felt sluggish to drive with all the weight in the back.
"I can't say enough about guys like Shawn and the generosity of Denny's Woodworking and Construction for donating equipment and guys from their crew who worked at cleaning the pit instead of being on a jobsite. That was just unbelievable," Moffat said. "Now we just have to get people to change their behaviours - put garbage in the dumpsters, not on someone's mountain."
