City’s rivers aren’t dumping grounds

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/09/2023 (984 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There’s an oft-repeated expression, usually unleashed after an act of carelessness or negligence results in damage to a beloved household item: “See? That’s why we can’t have nice things.”

Winnipeg’s rivers and streams are nice things. They are a defining element of our community’s character; an attribute so deeply ingrained in the local psyche that it isn’t unusual to hear folks hereabouts refer colloquially to their hometown as “River City.”

We should look after them.

There are indications throughout the year — from the throngs gathered at The Forks and associated riverwalks in the summer to the warming huts, shinny rinks and cross-country ski trails that punctuate the groomed-ice river trails in winter — that Winnipeggers love, embrace and are very proud of their waterways.

But there are also far too many examples — as evidenced by a report last week in the pages of this newspaper — of people treating our rivers and streams with a disrespect that in many cases seems to border on outright contempt.

“Massive amounts of garbage are putting a strain on the Seine (River),” the article’s opening line declares. The story is accompanied by pictures of volunteers from Save Our Seine (SOS) outfitted in waders and gloves, standing alongside cargo canoes in which they have piled refuse — shopping carts and bicycles, oil drums and tires, metal traffic barricades, tricycles, toys and maybe even a lawn mower or two — they have extracted from the river’s muddy beds and banks.

Why, exactly, such a volume of junk got into the Seine (and, one presumes, into the city’s other rivers and streams) is anybody’s guess. But the “how” part of the equation is easy to figure out: in every instance, someone put it there.

While it’s safe to assume most of the debris in or near Winnipeg’s waterways arrived there as a result of mindless mischief rather than outright malevolence, the presence of all that garbage indicates a too-widely held disregard for an essential part of the community we all call home. And the current volume of trash visible along our streets and boulevards and up and down our back lanes suggests the debris-depositing disdain is not limited to wetlands and waterways.

The actions of SOS volunteers, as well as numerous other groups that set aside time to clean up and spruce up our city on a regular basis, are greatly appreciated and necessary in the ongoing effort to maintain Winnipeg as a city of which we can be rightly proud. But a much preferable approach would be for citizens to responsibly dispose of trash and unwanted items in a manner that ensures they end up in an appropriate final resting place.

According to the City of Winnipeg’s Neighbourhood Liveability Bylaw, individuals caught dumping illegally can be subject to a $600 fine ($2,000 for what is described as “large-scale” dumping of garbage); corporate entities found committing the same offence can face a fine of $1,000 (the amount quadruples when the offence is “large scale”).

The application of such penalties is rare, of course, since in the absence of video surveillance or eyewitness reports, illegal dumping of garbage seldom ends in caught-in-the-act comeuppance. But perhaps reports such as last week’s, which outline the alarming volume of refuse being retrieved from rivers and streams, will make clear to individual offenders that theirs are not minor, isolated indiscretions, but instead significant transgressions contributing to a massive garbage-choked mess befouling our public waterways.

River City is our city. We can, and should, do a much better job of looking after our nice things — if we want to keep them.