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OTTAWA — William McMullen was thrilled that low water levels in the Ottawa River this spring meant little or no flooding in areas of Petrie Island normally under a few feet of water. The amateur wildlife photographer would be able to get to places he had never been before.
What McMullen hadn’t counted on was the garbage, on a scale he’d never seen: dozens of old tires, glass, plastics, nails, industrial waste, you name it.
“Because it’s a wetland area, a lot of the trees are blowing over where the water has receded, and the roots are pulling up earth and exposing what’s underneath — just tonnes and tonnes of garbage,” said McMullen, a Grade 7/8 teacher at Trillium Elementary School in
Orléans.
“You can feel the garbage under your feet, just under the leaves. I wrecked a pair of rubber boots a few weeks ago when I stepped on these really old bottles.”
Petrie Island is a city park stretching along the shore of the Ottawa River in Orléans. There are public beaches, picnic areas and walking trails.
Although no one seems to be sure exactly when it began and ended, there is general agreement that part of Petrie Island — near the Basswood Trail, away from the beach — was used as a dump until the 1960s and later. According to Allen Tweddle, chair of Friends of Petrie Island, that’s what McMullen is seeing: historic garbage, not litter freshly washed up on shore.
“The actual number of litter and garbage is less than usual,” said Allen Tweddle of the Friends of Petrie Island organization.
“Most of the garbage floats in with the floods, but there hasn’t been as much this year. What I notice this year is all the beaver damage.”
Tweddle said contamination levels were measured and it was found to be safe before the city built the park and opened it to the public in 2004.
“Most people wouldn’t notice that garbage because they don’t go off the trails,” said Tweddle. “It’s mostly covered over and mature trees have grown there and you don’t want to dig it out. It’s not stuff that’s really harming the environment. You leave it alone.”
Councillor Bob Monette said the city is in the process of hiring a consultant to develop a stewardship plan for Petrie Island, including deciding what to do about the historic garbage.
“Every year a lot of it comes back up and it’s more visible,” said Monette. “It’s got to be cleaned up, but it’s going to take a while. If you imagine 20 years of being used as a dump, that stuff does not disappear.”
“We’re spending a lot of energy in promoting Petrie Island and making it a destination for people,” Monette said. “The consultant will look at how to clean this up. It’s not simple.”
In the meantime, said Tweddle, “at this time of year, we encourage people heading to Petrie Island to take a garbage bag and pick up stuff as they go through. If there are things they can’t put in a garbage bag, leave them by the trail and the city will pick it up.”
Monette said he’d like to hear from park visitors like McMullen about what they find and where they find it, so he can try to have it removed.
“I want people to go to Petrie Island and feel it’s a great thing to have in our city, I don’t want people to think it’s a dump that no one is taking care of,” said Monette.
But McMullen was shocked to learn the site was ever used as a dump, and that the garbage wasn’t cleaned up before the site became a park.
“If that garbage were at any other park in the city, people would be all over it,” said McMullen.
“I’m kind of horrified that they seem to shrug it off. It is labelled as a sensitive wetland area and this really contradicts that.”
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