A Cape Breton man has been charged with illegal dumping in connection with a dump site in Reserve Mines, N.S.
People in the community have been complaining for years about the site, which is home to discarded items such as oil tanks, mattresses and furniture.
“Over the last 20 to 30 years, this site has been an ongoing illegal dumping site, and also the burning of garbage,” says Dylan Yates of the Cape Breton Environmental Association. “So basically what concerns me, there’s a lot of unknowns with the site, what’s underground, and the impact on the environment.”
Yates says complaints from local residents fell on deaf ears for decades, until Thursday, when a Reserve Mines, N.S., man was charged with illegal dumping under the Cape Breton Regional Municipality’s new waste resource management bylaw.
Police haven’t released the man’s name, saying the information is not yet before the courts. If convicted, he could face a fine of nearly $700, in addition to the costs associated with cleaning up the site.
This is the second illegal dumping charge laid against someone since the fine for such an act nearly tripled with CBRM’s new bylaw.
Police say the number of garbage sites in the Cape Breton area has been growing, but they hope the hefty new fine will make people think twice.
“The amount of investigated files for the first three months of this year doubled from the first three months of last year, so it’s becoming a big problem within the municipality” says Cape Breton Regional Police Const. Dan Lewis.
Lewis says it can be difficult to find the person responsible for a dump site, but sometimes evidence is left behind.
Meanwhile, Yates is hoping an environmental assessment will be done on the site to determine if the grounds are safe.
“Install some monitoring wells and see if the groundwater is contaminated or not,” he says. “I think it’s really important to figure out what the impact is associated with this site, and not just bury the garbage, out-of-site, out-of-mind mentality.”
The Reserve Mines, N.S. man is due in court in July.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Kyle Moore
