Illegal dumping mars scenic Vancouver Island lookout point

If you want to have a good look at Vancouver Island and the surrounding ocean, Little Mountain outside Parksville, B.C. is a perfect spot. Just don't look down at all the garbage.

Local residents say for the past four decades, the sitehas become better known for illegal dumping.

Residentslike Jeff Grognet, who liveon Little Mountain Road where the lookout is located, saypeople routinely drive to the top, carry appliances, furniture and all manner of refuse to edge and drop it.

'That is a strange way to have fun'

"It's real exciting to go and drop a refrigerator down a 100-foot cliff and see what happens to it at the bottom," Grognet said. "That is a strange way to have fun but some people just like doing things like that."

At the bottom of the 30-metre cliff is a pile of smashed-up trash, much of it large household items,including office furniture, fridges, couches, televisions and mattresses. One image even shows what appears to be a hot tub.

Twice, Grognet has organizeda clean-up of the site with thelocal RotaryClub. Volunteers load up massive bags and then arrange to have a helicopter lift themout.

The first clean-up done by Grognet and other volunteerswasin 2009. The Rotary Club repeated the effort last month,

Grognetsaid he was surprisedby how much garbage had piled up over the 10-year period.

Meanwhile, The Regional District of Nanaimosays it supports community efforts to clean the site, and has waived tipping fees at the local dump.

Larry Gardner,the regional district's manager for solid waste services, says the district doesn't have the capacity to do enforcement or clean up the site, which is Crown land.

In a statement, the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development says it's "unfortunate" that people use Little Mountain as an illegal dump.

Under the Environmental Management Act, people can be ticketed $115 for littering, or fined up to $2,000 for illegal dumping. TheLand Act provides for fines of up to $20,000 or a jail term not exceeding 60 days for anyone found guilty of illegal dumping.

The ministry says it logs reports of dumping, but did not provide statistics on the number of peoplecaught and fined.

The province says although the site is unsightly, it's not a high priority for attention becauseit does not pose an immediate environmental threat.

That's frustrating to Megan Olsen whogrew up on Vancouver Island and lived in Parksville from 2008 to 2015.

"There's no sense of cleaning it up, if it's just going to continue to happen," Olsensaid.

She wants to see fencingfor the area, whichwould make it more difficultto dump there. However, neither the region or the province seem interestedin limiting access to the site, which is open to the public, she said.

Grognet saidyears ago, residents erecteda fence, but someone tore it down.

Now, the local Rotary group is discussing installing cameras at the top of the ledge to deter dumping.

In the meantime, he hopes people will stop dumping there so the site will becomebetter known for its natural beauty.