Dear Editor:
Summerland has a municipal campsite on Peach Orchard Road without any sewer hook-ups. Where are these campers going to dump their waste? Drive all the way to Penticton? Not a great way to attract tourists to Summerland.
There is also free RV parking next to the badminton building on Prairie Valley Road. Where are they going to dump their waste?
There is a great forestry campsite on the Summerland-Princeton Road not too far out of town. Where are they going to dump their waste?
Soon you will have people dumping their waste in some ditch somewhere or maybe in the creek running through the campsite.
Why don’t you hire a couple of students or seniors for the summer months (May to October) to monitor the sani-dump and charge dumpers a fee of $5 which would pay for the employees and secure the site so you don’t have illegal dumping.
Even if you only opened it daily from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. when most people are travelling, it would be better than nothing.
If it’s the site that isn’t any good, then open one in town. You have the Chamber of Commerce, the land behind Petro Canada, the land beside the badminton building, etc.
I am sure if you put your thinking caps on you could come up with a location that might even draw tourists into town.
I would think that part of attracting tourists into town would be supplying services, not sending them to Canadian Tire in Penticton so they can dump and shop there.
And it’s not just the tourists who need a sani-dump.
You actually might have Summerland citizens who need to dump their RV waste.
If we can go to Penticton to dump then the RCMP could have come from Penticton to Summerland instead of spending huge money on a new RCMP building.
Alice Steenbergen
Summerland