A WCA employee works to clear refuse from the underbrush last week. Two WCA employees removed 15 truckloads of garbage from various illegal dumpsites around town.
The local environment is a little bit cleaner after the efforts this week of two enthusiastic WCA employees.
After two days, Arthur Larsen and Richard Oliver had collected 15 truckloads of discarded garbage. They picked up freezers, furniture, hot water tanks, tires, cans, discarded gill nets. Larger items, like a 500-gallon heating oil tank for a house on the spur road, and an abandoned car near Pat's Lake, will be left for city officials to clean up.
Dump sites come about when people seek to avoid paying fees to deposit garbage at the local landfill. A large refrigerator or freezer can cost $25 to deposit.
The original grant had provided funds to the Indian Environmental General Assistance Program (IGAP) to hire two workers at $18 an hour to document local dump sites at a maximum of 100 hours. However, Larsen and Oliver completed the documentation phase so quickly, they were looking for another task, Oliver said.
"We did it so fast," he said. "We looked at each other and said 'Do you think the city is gonna come all the way out here to clean up a microwave?'"
When the two handed in their documentation, they asked for permission to start clean up the sites, which was promptly granted, Olvier said.
"They talked to the funder and they said go ahead and clean up what you can," he said. "We cleaned up pretty much everything."
The two briefly considered cleaning up the oil tank, too, but changed their minds after realizing they would have to disassemble the ladder rack on the back of Oliver's truck to get it to fit, Oliver said.
"I usually get a lot bigger wage than that for the job, but this was a rewarding job to me," he said. "It was kind of shocking to see how much stuff was out there."
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