CALEB NICKERSON
MUNICIPALITY OF PONTIAC
Sept. 2, 2020
People dumping garbage illegally outside of a former dump site in the Municipality of Pontiac has raised the ire of one nearby resident.
Vladimir Tolstoy has lived a few kilometres up the road from the old eco-centre site on chemin du Lac des Loups, outside of Quyon, for 43 years. He said that the entrance to the site is large, which makes it easy for . . .
illegal dumpers to pull in, drop their trash and drive off.
“I presume it’s cottagers, because after every weekend, there are people that just dump their garbage at the entrance of where the old eco-centre was,” he said. “It’s disgusting.”
He said that this year has been particularly bad, and he suspects that cottagers make up a large proportion of the culprits, since the dumping got worse after the public health guidelines allowed people to visit their secondary residences.
“It’s gotten really bad, especially this year, it’s the worst,” he said. “I think COVID has a lot to do with that because people couldn’t go anywhere for the longest time, then they gave people permission to go to cottages. Since May it’s just been a disaster area.”
The Municipality of Pontiac’s assistant director general, Geneviève Latulippe, said that the situation is a recurring one each summer, and added that public works crews inspect the site twice a week and clear it out approximately once a month. She added that it typically requires heavy equipment to clean, which makes the issue a costly one to remedy.
Tolstoy was unhappy with the frequency with which the site was cleared out, and said he suspected it only happens when a complaint is lodged with the municipality. Latulippe stated unequivocally that this wasn’t the case. The Equity first reached out to Latulippe regarding the issue on Thursday morning last week, and Tolstoy reported that by that afternoon crews were on site doing clean up.
Reached by phone on Aug. 31, Tolstoy said that there was already trash piled up from over the weekend.
“Thursday they had cleaned it up and Saturday there’s couches and garbage lying there again,” he said. “It’s weekends, cottagers.”
Latulippe stressed that the municipality was looking for solutions to re-open the dump and encouraged citizens to dump their waste legally. The information regarding where this can be done is available on the municipality’s website.
