Illegal dumping forces residents to close property access roads  

People offloading trash on a Prince George resident’s property has forced them to close access roads, which have been open to the public for over 40 years.

Volunteers from the Spruce City Wildlife Association, in partnership with Wood Wheaton Supercenter, spent their fall Sunday cleaning up approximately 2500lbs of trash and recycling from the Bellamy family’s property on Noranda Road yesterday afternoon.

Barbara Bellamy, whose husband is part owner of the property, said people have been dumping and burning garbage on the property “almost daily.”

“We’ve had to do 17-18 big cleanups in the last 30 years.”

She said her father-in-law doesn’t want to close access to the property, but the problem is getting out of hand.

“We’ve tried to leave it for the kids to play, but we have to do something. I’m getting to an age where I can’t get out and clean up and if it weren’t for Spruce City it would have stayed a mess,” said Bellamy.

“Unfortunately there’s a few jerks who are making it impossible to have for everybody.”

 This is not the first time illegal dumping in the city’s parks and properties has been an issue.

President of the Spruce City Wildlife Association, Steve Hamilton, said the association got together with Wood Wheaton Supercentre and other like-minded stakeholder groups about two and half years ago to tackle the issue of illegal dumping.

Since they began, they’ve gone to anywhere between 12-15 sites, and cleaned up close to 30,000 pounds of trash.

Even in the short time the volunteers were on the Bellamy land, one truck arrived attempting to dump refuse, and Hamilton said he found two other people burning a mattress and box spring in another area of the property. Less than 24 hours after the site was cleaned, Hamilton returned to find that someone had dumped two loads of sod in the space they had just cleared. 

Hamilton said the best thing residents can do is make sure they report illegal dumping when they see it. Anyone wishing to report can contact Spruce City directly, or contact the RAPP 24-hour hotline to report a violation: 1-877-952-7277.