James Shalman of Apex Resort rifles through what’s left of an illegal dump pile on crown land, not too far from the resort.
There’s not much left of the pile. Someone hauled away the larger items sometime in the last couple of days. The pile included a fridge, a mattress and a filing cabinet.
“It would be way faster for them to drive to the Penticton landfill and do the proper thing and dump it in the proper location, than it is to come up here and make an absolute mess,” said Shalman. “So, why bother?”
A clue to who might be responsible for the dump might be in some mail found at the site.
The address on the mail leads to a residence in Penticton that is under renovation. Global News was contacted by the man whose name is on the mail. He says he lived there four years ago and that he’s taking a beating on social media since it was posted on Facebook.
“They (landlord) probably threw the garbage out and that screwed me because I’m getting called all kinds of names on Facebook, and for what reason I don’t know. I use the city garbage dump myself,” the man said.
WATCH BELOW (Aired Aug. 9, 2018): Kelowna’s largest illegal dump on public property
The Regional District says it finds personal information in illegal dump sites all the time, but says it’s difficult to prove who’s responsible.
“The Regional District doesn’t have any powers to catch people. We do send letters when we find personal information,” said solid waste manager Cameron Baughen.
“Often, people do leave personal information in illegal dump sites. We do contact those people.”
The Regional District of South Okanagan received more than 20 illegal dump site complaints last year.
Meantime, Shalman says Apex will take care of this mess.
“We’ll come down with a couple of trucks later this afternoon and deal with it,” he said. “But it’s frustrating that we have to deal with this.”