Rocky View farmers call for action to help end illegal dumping
Posted May 5, 2020 4:25 pm.
Last Updated May 6, 2020 6:15 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
ROCKY VIEW COUNTY (660 NEWS) — The Lantz family has been farming in Rocky View County for over a hundred years, but a long-running problem has them fed up.
For many years, their land has been a prime target for illegal dumpers who choose to toss waste on the ground instead of going to a landfill.
A lot of the culprits are contractors from Calgary, resulting in Lantz-Kolbuc sending a letter to Mayor Naheed Nenshi demanding some action.
“I write to you today because we are fed up, overwhelmed, and tired of the exponential amount of illegal dumping,” Janna Lantz-Kolbuc wrote in her letter.
In the most recent egregious example, they had to haul 35 garbage bags worth of trash off the property.
This would be annoying for anybody, but it is downright infuriating for people who make a living off of the land.
“We have a limited window as farmers to get our crops into the ground as well as get them off the ground, and we have a short growing season here. If we have to stop and spend two days cleaning out one hundred acre piece out of the 9,000 acres we farm, and we have to do that continually, it really slows us down,” she said in an interview with 660 NEWS.
Lantz-Kolbuc added that they feel ashamed about the situation, and it is embarrassing when guests come to their place and pass garbage piles in the ditch.
Then, even after the manual labour of hauling the garbage from the land, they have to also pay the dump fees to dispose of it properly.
She believes there is something systemically broken, and has proposed several solutions, including: reducing or eliminating dump fees; providing better education to residents; regulating commercial and residential building waste management; increasing dumping fines and enforcement; and looking at other jurisdictions for best practices.
Lantz-Kolbuc said it is unfortunate it has come to this situation, but they cannot bear the whole responsibility themselves anymore.
“My approach is to get down to the root of the problem and come up with some solutions. And there is no one solution, it needs to be a combination of things. The bottom line is we need to work together.”
She also wants people to hold their contractors responsible if they know this is happening.
The full letter to Mayor Nenshi can be seen here:
MayorNenshi_IllegalDumping_Final
