While the Regional District fiddles with prices at the dump and composting, the West Kootenay has suffered a blow that has had an enormous impact and yet goes unaddressed by our "leaders."
About eight years ago, rats were first noticed in Nelson. I am extremely confident that they were rare to nonexistent in the sixties and seventies. Now they are ubiquitous, causing damage to homes, vehicles and agriculture, with health impacts unmonitored. All of our vehicles have suffered varying degrees of rat damage, and our auto dealer reports replacing entire wiring harnesses. Tragically, our small farm is now in a constant battle to limit damage to crops such as tomatoes.
Upon returning to this area, I was horrified by the state of waste management. On any forest road you find garbage tips. The outrageous fees at the landfill encourage this. Progressive communities have free tipping stations.
We have turkeys, a game species, eating at our dump garbage. Turkeys were an attraction to the area, with people coming to admire and hunt them. People don’t hunt dump animals. It is certain that the landfill is rat utopia. It is time to completely rethink waste management in the West Kootenay. Nelson in particular has a serious problem.
Stores regularly sell out of rat control devices, but that isn't the issue. Without a coordinated effort to control rats in this area, our economic advantage of being a rat free zone is squandered.
Castlegar has one of the ugliest tourist information centres on earth, we have a bike path to hell, and we have a compost recycling program which undoubtedly feeds many rats. These frivolities are third-tier priorities. Rats are costing us possibly millions of dollars. Are the town councils and regional districts up to dealing with a real issue?
