Chris Lowrey
BRISTOL Oct. 2, 2019
The Pontiac Quad Club could be on the hook for some expensive garbage removal after one of its members stumbled on a massive . . .
pile of garbage at the corner of Twelfth Line and Ragged Chute Roads in Bristol.
The quad club posted pictures of the heap on its Facebook page asking anyone with information to call club president René Barrette.
The section of land where the garbage was found is actually private property, and Barrette is skeptical that the club will get any assistance from local government.
“Maybe the municipality will go and clean it but I don’t think so,” Barrette said. “The municipality doesn’t have the money. We’ll probably have to step up and clean up the mess.”
And the cleanup wouldn’t be cheap. Barrette estimated that with the cost of hauling the garbage with a truck and getting a backhoe to load it into the truck, the quad club could be on the hook for up to $1,000.
“It’s not our fault,” Barrette said. “But we have to be nice to the property owner.”
The quad club depends on maintaining good relationships with property owners so its member can use the trails that zigzag through several private properties.
“If the owner’s got to clean it by himself I’m sure he’s going to say ‘Get out,’ and put up a gate,” Barrette cautioned. “I wouldn’t blame him, if someone was doing that on my property I’d do the same thing.”
It’s an ongoing issue that the quad club has been dealing with for quite some time.
“It’s not the first time,” Barrette said. “It happened this winter.”
This latest pile just shows someone was too cheap to pay the dump fee for their own garbage.
“Someone’s cleaned out their garage because there’s shingles and all kinds of stuff in there,” he said.
Since it would be next to impossible for someone on an ATV to haul that much garbage into the bush – not to mention the fact that ATV riders are the ones using the trails – Barrette doesn’t think it was a member of the quad club.
“It’s not an ATV person,” he said. “Someone went there with a pickup or something like that.”
