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Column: River Valley an inappropriate place for garbage

I’ve decided it’s time to speak up for one of my dearest friends. I feel she’s been taking abuse for too long and cannot stand it anymore.

I’ve decided it’s time to speak up for one of my dearest friends. I feel she’s been taking abuse for too long and cannot stand it anymore.

I’m talking about the River Valley Trail, one of the city’s finest areas to hike, bike and stroll.

On two separate Saturdays in April we’ve gone for a bike ride to the river and each time I pass the area we locals call the Ash Tray, I feel angry.

Whoever believes they have a right to hurl things off the top of the cliff above that area needs to stop.

The Williams Lake River is roaring by at the foot of the embankment, so it would be almost impossible to go haul away the fridges, tires, etc. that are accumulating there.

And the embankment itself is constantly changing with sand rolling down so I don’t even know if it would be safe to stand over there.

I have not been up at the top of the Ash Tray so I don’t know what it looks like, but from below it doesn’t seem like the safest place to be hurling things from.

We tried driving up the road to Moore’s Meadow last Saturday before our bike ride, but the road was muddy with huge ruts.

Once we reached the flat area up top we turned around and headed back down.

As we were leaving the River Valley later we also saw a broken metal table in the parking lot at the halfway mark.

And there were two couches tossed on the side of the road one block from the CRD transfer station.

It reminded me of the time I saw an entire computer lab dumped on the side of a road going up the mountain above Prince Rupert, and later spied a mahogany head board tossed on a pullout a kilometre further up that road.

It bugs me that people would rather drive and dump things illegally than take them to be disposed of properly.

There won’t be a shortage of artifacts for archaelogists studying our time in centuries to come.

On the positive front, when we went to the dump on Saturday we were stopped at the weigh scale and asked what we were dumping.

“We have household garbage and then a bunch of recycling we’ll take up to the other area after,” my husband told the attendant.

She smiled back and said that was good to hear.

I guess they are ramping up their education piece to let people know what does and does not belong in the dump.

And we noticed the Share Shed was really busy while we sorted and placed our recycling in the bins.

Someone called a few weeks ago and said there was a rumour the Share Shed was closing, but that isn’t true.

Community Living held the contract to run it, but is moving on to other things, as they noted in a thank you placed in the Tribune.

Monica Lamb-Yorski is a staff writer with the Tribune/Weekend Advisor.



Monica Lamb-Yorski

About the Author: Monica Lamb-Yorski

A B.C. gal, I was born in Alert Bay, raised in Nelson, graduated from the University of Winnipeg, and wrote my first-ever article for the Prince Rupert Daily News.
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