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[Lew Chater]

Had a call this week from a river user about a messy site about a half mile above the Vedder Crossing Bridge just above Teskey Rock. Marvin Senft asked if some members of the Chwk Vedder River Cleanup Coalition would be interested in giving him and a few friends a hand to clean up this site. He had a truck and a bin from Chwk Roofing, so Terry and I agreed to meet them on the river at 7:30 this morning.

When we went into this site, I couldn't believe it. We have cleaned up some pretty messy sites but this one topped them all. We had to build a plank walkway across a side stream to get the wheelbarrows across that were needed for this site.

We have 10 guys who worked hard from 7:30 to 11:00 am to get this cleaned out. There were at least 3 different sites with one main site with tarps covering about 9 old tents. There were sleeping bags, clothes, shoes, boots, chairs, tables etc. We removed piles of plactic that the wire had been stripped out. There were at least parts of 20 bicycles, 12 volt batteries, small and large propane tanks, power tools, parts of radios, tape players etc.

We found old needles and an almost full box of new needles, so cleaning these sites involves some risk to the volunteeers. I haven't described everything as it was almost beyond belief.

This area is within the Chwk City limits and there are by-laws that can be used to prevent this type of mess. I phoned Chris and got him out of bed, to come and take video of this. Chris then got the Chwk Progress to come out and take a look and take some pictures. We also had a director from the FVRD have a look, and the RCMP were notified again.

We will be working with the City of Chwk on Monday morning to get the stuff hauled away. It is going to take a lot of effort to haul this amount of garbage up the rip-rap bank and it is heavy as everything is soaking wet. We hope that on seeing this mess, the by-law will be enforced quickly next time so this doesn't have to happen to this degree again.

I will post several pictures of before, after, and the pile of garbage cleaned out.
A huge thanks to Marvin and his buddies who initiated this cleanup and worked so hard to remove this eyesore from the riparian area of this great river.

[bigguy]

that is incredible!  Where did the owners go?? In jail??  There was a spot much like this one on Keith Wilson road right down by the river but covered by the trees.  Not sure if it is still being used!

[copperspoon]

Thanks to all the volunteers for the effort-a job well done.
As to owner well there is no owner just a bunch of junkie vermin camping out stealing shooting up smoking crack and collecting welfare.
Believe it people these are the same crackheads that are constantly breaking into people's cars.

[chris gadsden]

Thanks to all that turned out to cleanup this terrible mess and to Marvin that got a group together with Lew, Terry and Buckeye from the CVRCC also pitching in. 2:40 who was working today got out to take some more photo to pass on to the FVRD.

Also Frank Sobkwich Area E Director of the Chilliwack Valley who took the time to come down to inspect this even though it is outside his area. He contacted the RCMP and they are going down as I type this to check it out as there is stuff there that has been stolen. As Copperspoon said these individuals that stayed here would be those that would have most likely been doing some of the breakins to fishers cars.

I just converted my VHS video to DVD and Buckeye is working on trying to convert it to a format to show here.

[mr.pink]

 nice work guys.what freakin' mess,cheers.

[BigFisher]

Haha thats where i was fishing and saw the boat yesterday.

[bigguy]

It is Wilson road, is that tarp etc. still there from last year?

[Buckeye]

A big thanx to all who were able to help out today.
If it were not for a few dedicated fishermen who are not scared to get their hands dirty, this stuff would have been washed away with the next high water. 
I have cut out and compressed a portion of the video Chris gave me. I managed to get 8 minutes of video down to about 14 megabytes. This is still quite a large file, suitable only for broadband users.

The video can be downloaded here:
http://members.shaw.ca/Pimmetje/Illegal camp cleanup Teskey Rock Oct 15 05.avi

To play this file you will need to have the XViD codec installed on your computer. This is the best codec quality wise, but it does not come with windows as it competes with microsofts own codec.

You can download the codec here:
http://members.shaw.ca/Pimmetje/XviD-1.0-RC2-07022004.exe

I will leave the video online for a few days only, otherwise I will likely get a nasty email from my service provider regarding bandwidth usage.

Enjoy...
George


**EDIT**

I have made the video smaller, down to 5.48 MB. It runs 3 minutes 21 seconds now.
Now you don't have to watch Lew's mug while listening to him ramble on...

[halorail]

Great Job Guys

[chris gadsden]

Thanks Buckeye very much for putting the video clip together.

[casinoJim]

Wow ! What a mess.

I have a question...

What training or precautions are used to prevent needle sticking and therefore possible Hepatitis/AIDS/HIV infection in this kind of situation?

CJ

PS. Needles don't allways mean junkies... I am a diabetic and use those... and although I doubt it,this could be a homeless diabetic.

[pontooner]

Great job guys but why were by-law/police not there to fine/charge the individual that was there

[Terry Bodman]

Casino Jim asks a good question. The Directors of the CVRCC are always conscious of the issue of safety and chat with our volunteers during our four formal cleanups during the year. We have a "don't touch" when it comes to dangerous materials. Having said that we had only experienced people on this one and it still made us very nervous. Needles were numerous and while we were wearing heavy gloves there was always the thought of a needle penetrating our wader boots...not likely but certainly possible. The mess we encountered on Saturday tells me two things:

1. It is important that by-laws be enforced so that these "camps" do not become permanent. It is also important that RCMP be notified when it is obvious laws are being broken. i.e. illegal drugs. stolen property.
2. The CVRCC needs to be even more specific to our volunteers prior to cleanup  activities.

Thanks for raising the question.

[Nostro]

I just watched the video. That is incredible! Thanks guys for taking time from your week-end to do all that the City should have been doing.
It does raise a lot of questions and concerns and hopefully various levels of government will follow up:
- By-Law enforcement: this was a small community, living in temporary shelters, all within City limits
- Health and Safety to the general public: needles, garbage, human waste
- RCMP: site should have have been left undisturbed in case the RCMP may have viewed it as a crime scene
- Social: obviously this was home to a lot of people for a long time; all within City limits. This is a sad statement because these residents would probably rather live in more suitable accommodations than these
- Environment: to have this garbage and squalor exist on the very precious floodplain of a sensitive river is very concerning

Thanks to all.

[BigFisher]

So what happened with the people living there? When I was there las friday there were still 3 people living there.