There is quite a mess to clean up in the Town of Grand Bank.
A garbage truck had a hydraulics leak when it was picking up garbage in the town on Wednesday, leaving fluid spilled along the route until it was discovered.
Mayor Rex Matthews has some serious concerns about how the leak happened.
He says staff at the town hall were told that issues with the hydraulic system were known to the workers before they went over the highway to get to Grand Bank.
Mayor Rex Matthews
He says given current environmental regulations, the truck should have stayed parked until it was repaired. He says it would have been no big deal for the town to postpone its waste collection but “the big deal is they did something really stupid, and they knew the difference.”
Matthews acknowledges that the town has heard complaints about the cleanup process, but says crews will be working to leave the streets the way they found them before the leak.
VOCM News has spoken with Harold Murphy, chair of the Burin Peninsula Regional Service Board, which contracts out the service. He says he is aware of the situation and that crews with the sub contractor are on site trying to clean it up.
He notes that the machine used collects garbage automatically, similar to how garbage is collected in St. John’s, and because no one has to get out of the machine the leak went unnoticed for some time.
The provincial department of Digital Government and Service NL says an environmental protection officer is working with the town to ensure the spill is cleaned up properly, in accordance with government guidelines.
