The Nova Scotia Department of Environment says the town of Yarmouth has complied with its order to clean up debris near Lake George.
Tonnes of compost B material was spread on the land.
It contained plastics, syringes and other material.
In an email to CJLS News, Krista Higdon, a media relations advisor with the department, said “an inspection was completed by NS Environment on Monday October 3rd. The department has confirmed that the town has complied with the litter order.”
Adam Russell who lives next to the site says the biggest part of the compost has been taken away but there is still garbage littering the perimeter.
“The biggest part of the compost has bee taken away but t.he perimeter hasn’t been cleaned. Where they planted the trees, the depth of that compost hasn’t been cleaned. We have to keep pressure on them to do their job.”
Russell says their number 1 concern is the contamination or possible contamination in the ground.
“I believe they are under a contaminated site regulations . That’s what people are not understanding. It’s not just the garbage that we’re talking about. It’s a safety issue. The surface water….four of us have letters out here stating that we are possibly impacted by contamination.”
Mayor Pam Mood says “the town has complied with the directives set forth by environment, so that’s been take care of. There may be a few pieces of plastic or something like that that’s still out there and that’s certainly easy to pick up and we can certainly look into that.”
As far as soil contamination, the mayor said ” we’ve repeatedly said and we point to the what the experts have said through their studies: that what we put out there was completely inert, so there’s no soil contamination because of what was left out there. Now it’s removed so now we’re just going forward.”
The Department of Environment declined an interview with CJLS News.
