A Prince George man who thinks council's decision to close a recreational vehicle sani-dump stinks wants to show them that he isn't he only one who feels that way.
Glen Grohs is circulating a petition asking the mayor and councillors to reverse the decision made July 8 to shut down the sewerage dump site at the Quinn Street transfer station.
Operation of the site was transferred to the Regional District of Fraser-Fort George and if the sani-dump were to continue to run, it would have to be maintained by the city as well as money spent to separate the the regional district and the city-run areas.
According to the city-staff created core review implementation plan, shutting down the sani-dump would avoid annual maintenance costs of $5,500 as well as the cost of hiring a security company to collect the gate fee.
"As fare as I'm concerned, the taxpayers have paid for that sani-dump and there's no reason to close it," said Grohs.
His petition - which has been circulating at Northern Hardware, NR Motors, Vivian Lake Resort and Happy Trails RV - has more than 200 signatures already collected.
"And I've talked to a lot of people - they're really choked that it's closed," said Grohs. "We paid to have it put in there and it's not that old."
The site has been fenced off and incorporated into the the 18th Avenue Yard for public works purposes.
"Until council directs me to do more work, that's where it's at," said operations superintendent Bill Gaal.
A city report listed seven other private business that operate dump sites, but Grohs said,especially for those living in the bowl, they're inconvenient.
"When you're coming home, I don't want to have to go out to the BCR site or up the Hart Highway to go and dump. It's just a pain," he said, noting he witnessed long line ups at the Bon Voyage Esso when returning home from a trip to Cluculz Lake. "They would probably wait an hour, two hours to get into them. I don't have time to sit there on a Sunday night I'm coming back I need to get unpacked, I need to get parked and everything else at home, I'm not going to sit in a line up at a garage waiting for everyone else to dump."
Prior to closing the site, there were no official stats taken on how often the Quinn Street site was used.
"The contractor that was maintaining the transfer station estimates that on average 10 RVs accessed the site daily during the months of June, July and August," said the business case in the core review plan. The remaining months were estimated to have half that traffic, which would in total generate about $8,000 in gross revenue if the $6 gate fee was charged.
