Pigs of the Pass

RJ Pisko photos

RJ Pisko, Comment

The southwest corner of Alberta is one of the most beautiful, biodiverse, and accessible mountain areas anywhere. It seems to be inhabited, however, by an inordinate percentage of folks who, as residents, do not appreciate or maybe even understand what they have here. Now I realize I’m a “noob” (newbie) – I’ve only been here fourteen years – and may not yet have fully grasped the mentality of those who “belong” here. But the insensitivity of some locals to their environment is unfathomable to me.

I am writing here out of sheer frustration. In September of 2011, a the daughter of a close friend had an excellent piece of photojournalism published in the Crowsnest Pass Promoter, decrying the apparently acceptable practice of dumping trash – household garbage, trimmings, construction waste, mechanical cast offs, appliances, dead pets – you name it – anywhere in the municipality that is convenient to them. Her impetus for the article was a trip through the Frank Slide historic site, where I showed her several favorite dump spots.

We discovered TV sets, discarded jeans, lots of rusty old car parts – and a dozen or so old snow machine engines. That was just a part of it, too, and all the trash was clearly visible from the Crowsnest Historic Trail.

RJ Pisko photos

With a brother and his friend, they loaded a few truck boxes with the garbage and disposed of it properly, Thanks again, Shay, Jesse and Zane - for your citizenship and respect for a monument to a tragic historic time in the Pass, and to Crowsnest Waste Disposal for the use of a bin for their clean-up efforts. Now of course they didn’t manage to clean up the entire mess – there’s lots left, and more continues to appear from time to time. Mattresses, bicycles, huge plastic bags of who knows what.

To those who continue to leave their offal with the limits of our beautiful little town and surrounding recreational forests, for shame. You are ignorance personified – and that’s about the kindest, mildest term I can think of (although the word “cretin” came to mind). You know who you are – should you care to defend dumping your garbage on the graves of your ancestors, let’s hear from you. Of course this phenomenon isn’t limited to the slide area.

The problem is particularly offensive within the Alberta Historic site of the mine works across from the CNP Golf and Country Club, and at several common bush party sites throughout the close-by forestry. Lots of old couches and chairs left behind in party, staging areas, and campsites, too, often burned and the steel frames and springs left behind. Appliances dumped on the side of old mining roads, in the wild raspberries off Adanac Road, many old appliances – including the Freon tanks - dumped off the “black road” east of the Mohawk tipple historic site. (This road has since been closed, but from the evidence a few short years ago it sure appeared to be the work of someone who disposed of a lot of fridges, stoves, washers and dryers within a day or so of each dump).

Now for the finger-pointing. This problem has increased several fold, as far as I’m concerned (I’m in the bush and on the back roads of the municipality every day) it’s (the garbage dumping) been much, much worse since previous Pass Council canceled Spring/Fall cleanups.

It certainly caught me unawares, and it’s very difficult for seniors and the disabled to find a way to dispose of excess household waste, appliances, construction waste, old cars and the like. Sparwood has a spring clean-up, albeit limited to a pickup load. Fernie offers a 10-day Spring clean-up for yard waste and the additional service of large item disposal for Seniors. I realize the Pass has a community compound for yard waste disposal, and a metal recycling compound – and that’s great. But apparently the folks (my politest label) who dispose of their garbage in the forest or grazing consortium areas aren’t aware of it, as they are dumping within a kilometer of the nearby compound, at the old Devlin site.

If we (the Municipality) “can’t afford it” – then perhaps a structured “user pay” clean-up system could be set up. I would gladly pay a nominal sum for a municipally sponsored scheduled Spring and/or Fall clean-up.

How about it, Council?