UPDATE: Powell River Regional District's manager of community services Mike Wall and Peak writer Andy Rice visited Hammil Lake on Monday, July 21, to follow up on this story.
Domestic garbage and burn piles were prevalent along the shoreline, but it was determined that the issue falls outside the jurisdiction of the regional district as BC Hydro holds a right of way easement on the land.
Steve Boneham, a resident in the area who drew attention to the issue of garbage being dumped at the lake, has been informed of these findings and has been encouraged to contact BC Hydro to arrange a solution.
A popular throughway to Hammil (West) Lake may soon be blocked in an effort to curb dumping of cans and household waste in the area.
The private road runs through a piece of property on Gunther Road belonging to Steve Boneham. It was closed to public access when he purchased the land eight years ago but he decided to open it once he settled in. After a significant increase in garbage dumping in and around the lake over the past year, he’s become frustrated enough to consider blocking it off.
“If I see any more garbage dumped up there I’m shutting my road down,” he said. “I can block it off. It’s mine and BC Hydro’s. That’s going to be a pain for everyone now though if I do that. A lot of people use it who go up to the lake.”
Boneham said he has found everything from beer bottles to diapers littering the site, replenished weekly by visitors to the area. “I’ve probably taken 20 garbage bags of crap out of there since I’ve lived here. There’s people coming up there at night, teenagers go up there and burn pallets. There’s huge piles of nails. It’s nasty.”
He added that while the problem has existed to some degree in the past, it has grown much worse in recent months. “Shortly after those bins got taken away from Safeway, I think.”
Small thefts on his nearby property have become a new problem altogether.
A second access to Hammil Lake is located close to Valley Road on Padgett Road. Unlike the one running through Boneham’s property, signs are posted there to discourage dumping. “I haven’t seen too many people dumping at that other end lately,” he said. “If they put a sign up [here] saying if you get caught dumping it’s a $2,000 fine or whatever, maybe that’ll help.”
Boneham said he recently spoke with a BC conservation officer about the problem but had yet to bring it to the attention of local government. The Peak contacted Powell River Regional District to enquire about whether any signage and monitoring had ever been put in place in the area. “It’s not on the radar at all,” said Mike Wall, manager of community services. He said he would need to look into it. “I could prepare to do a report to the directors if indeed it would be our concern and come up with a plan to try and remedy it.”
Boneham’s solution for the meantime hasn’t helped much. “We’ve tried putting up little signs,” he said. “Maybe they deter some people, but other people just burn the sign. I’d like to maybe put a couple of steel drums or something up there that they can throw their cans in, and maybe they might have some incentive to throw them in there rather than the lake.
“I want the public to know that it’s not a dumping ground,” he continued. “It’s a nice little lake. There are kids that go up there and swim. They don’t feel like swimming with beer cans and broken bottles and glass and everything else. Most people respect that, but there’s a few that don’t.”
