Our fire department
is made up of 30 or so volunteers who came forward from our community to give
up their time and energy to willingly put themselves in harm’s way to save us
and our families in the event of a fire or emergency.
The did
sign up for the fire rescue business; they did not sign up to be in the hazardous
waste business.
In this
past week’s Council meeting, a small but important tidbit was raised by Councillor
Pickett regarding the Clarenville Fire Department’s / Town of Clarenville’s
refusal to take part in this year’s reformatted
Hazardous Waste Disposal
Program. (see this week’s PACKET "No Hazardous waste collection in Clarenville this year: Fire department chooses not to volunteer" May 29, p1 )
This year
over 30 volunteer fire departments across the province will be hosting their own
communities Hazardous Waste Day(s), in return for $1,000 by the government’s
waste management board. Clarenville will not be one of them. This service has traditionally be provided by
a certified hazardous waste disposal company and the Town and government
contributed to the expense of them coming and setting up in the community for
the day.
Evidently that
system was too costly so this year hazardous waste disposal has been downloaded
on community volunteer fire departments. That’s not what they signed up for, and
evidently in Clarenville’s volunteer fire department, they did not feel that they
have the proper capacity to deal with it.
Rightfully so, they rejected the offer.
It was
argued that this was simply a communications problem – they did not
understand. But the misunderstanding
went deeper than the fire department. Council appeared unaware of the situation and
unaware of the Fire department’s concerns. Council should have known and they should have
actively supported them in getting the right information and then supported
whatever decision they made.
While it is
true that we need an opportunity to dispose of hazardous waste, I want to see
it done properly and I certainly don’t want to see it shirked off our volunteer
fire department. Government at the
Provincial and Town level must ensure that if we are putting people in harm’s
way that they know the risks, and the procedures to mediate that risk. In this case it appears that this was not done.
Bravo to
the Clarenville Fire Department for doing the right thing,
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