A truck-load of concrete, dirt, and garbage left behind in a Davisburg-area ditch has one nearby resident seeing red.
Nearby resident Riley Clark said it looked like a dump truck filled with waste and debris from a construction or demolition site simply emptied its load into the ditch near 112 Street East and Dunbow Road and drove away sometime around Sept. 16-17.
He said it's been a regular occurance in the area and it's disappointing to see it keep happening.
“Last year somebody dumped an engine, previosly there's been people dumping household garbage, you name it it's been dumped,” said Clark.
He said he hopes people will be caught in the act to be held accountable. He said the people who are doing the dumping should be paying to have it cleaned up, not taxpayers.
“It's hard to catch the person unless somebody has a wildlife camera or something,” said Clark.
Darlene Roblin, MD protective services co-ordinator, said it's frustrating and all too common problem across the MD of Foothills.
“Certain places get hit, and we get places where we haven't seen it before and then now and again we find it,” she said.
Roblin said it is difficult to get a conviction because a person would have to be caught in the act and the witness would have to testify in court. Even if they find a reciept or prescription bottle with a name on it, she said they still need to be able to prove that person illegally dumped his or her trash on the side of the road.
When incidents are reported, Roblin said crews from the Foothills Regional Landfill are called out to clean it up. If they can't find those responsible, she said the bill is ultimately covered by taxpayers.
Bill Robinson, MD of Foothills municipal treasurer, said the MD doesn’t track how much it spends to clean up illegal dumping cases.
However, landfill manager Joe Angevine said landfill crews are sent out to between 70 and 80 cases each year.
Illegal dumping is something Angevine said he has had to deal with since the first day of his five-year tenure working at the landfill.
“That’s just the small ones that doesn’t include the big ones that the road crew has to clean up with equipment and trucks,” he said.
Angevine said he is aware of the Dunbow-area incident, which he said was too large for landfill crews to deal with and had to be cleaned up by MD road crews.
“I got about six phone calls about that one,” he said.
