Labrador mayor dumps on waste management plan

A southern Labrador mayor is criticizing a proposed regional waste management plan for his area.

Provincial officialsworking onterms of reference for the plan visited Labrador's south coast in July and met with representatives from communities from L'Anse au Claire to Port Hope Simpson.

There are about a dozen towns between L'Anse au Clair and Cartwright,spread over more than 500 kilometres of mostly gravel roads. Establishing one regional dump site would mean rounds trips of hundreds of kilometres for some towns, and the mayor of one community fears that residents would have to bear the costs.

"You got to have a dozer, you got to have a loader, you got to have a building to maintain that gear," said Red Bay Mayor Wade Earle. "Plus the insurance and the staff and the operating costs. It's not going to be a cheap operation."

Population declining

Collecting garbage for Red Bay's 300 residents now costs about $125 a week.

Furthermore, Earle says, the area's population is declining and he fears that in the future, fewer people will be forced to cover the highercosts.

"What's it going to be five years down the road, or10 years down the road. What's the population going to be then?" asked Earle. "Right now [the area's population] is, say,4,000 or 5,000. The average age is probably 60 years old. Where do it leave us?"

Earle believes themore than a dozendumps currently operatingcould be brought up to snuff for a fraction of the cost of establishing a single site.

In an email to CBC News, government officials say the province is not committed todeveloping one central dump for the whole southern Labrador area.

The study theprovincehopesto begin this fall willassess the option ofconsolidating the current dumpsinto two or three sites.