Garbage Dumps in Town

Early in 2004, just before we moved into Town, a consulting firm had been hired that collected input from the public and provided some suggestions on what can be done to make Bruderheim a vibrant and growing community.

The representatives of the consulting firm said that one of the immediate impressions they gained when they came to look Bruderheim over was that of there being lots of space, and that Bruderheim was blessed by being so closely connected with the rural area surrounding it, with all of that providing nice and appealing views and favourable impressions.

There were suggestions that Bruderheim could be beautified, that some beautification projects require little, if any, money, and that with very little effort Bruderheim could be an attraction for seniors and retirees intent on finding an appealing place in which to spend their golden years. Of course, Bruderheim cannot truly be a vibrant and vital community without having a reasonably large number of younger families — ideally with children — to count amongst its inhabitants.
The question of advertising and

promoting Bruderheim's features was discussed to a considerable extent. It was not mentioned much, but is a fact that, whether we deliberately try or not, a lot of advertising of Bruderheim's features, advantages and assets takes place at a subliminal level, almost every day of the year but especially on Sundays.

Bruderheim has two churches whose histories go back to the days of the founding of Bruderheim. Those churches always did and still draw many of their members from families who operate farms in the area. When members of a church congregation see unsightly sights when going to or leaving church, what message does that give them? Will it entice them to want to move into town?
The demolition of the old building (the old principal's residence) in the photo at the right took place in about November of 2004. When will that eye-sore be removed?
The unsightly debris from that demolition project is located right across the street from the main entrance of the Lutheran Church. Will the seeing of it on a prolonged and repeated basis entice church-goers from out of town to move into town? That is not very likely. The more likely outcome of that sort of advertising is that the church-goers are put off by the sight and wonder why they should move into a town that appears to be undisturbed by its lack of bylaw enforcement. More likely yet, sights like that will probably not even let them consider Bruderheim as an option.

Update 2005 07 09:
A problem fixed

It took a while, but doesn't this look much better? Tom Millet worked on this for three or four days. He ripped the left-over scraps from the old principal's residence apart, loaded them on his pick-up truck and hauled them away. He cut the grass, used his weed trimmer, and he even clipped the hedges. Thanks a lot, Tom. You did a nice job. One bad thing happened, though. Tom had forgotten to load his brand-new maul (yellow fibre glass handle and a rubber protection close to the head) on his truck on the evening of July 8th. The maul was gone in the morning and hasn't come back yet. It used to be that things like that did not happen in our Town.

A while ago the provincial government decided to check on the state of the environment and how it was affected by old, disused service stations in many Alberta communities. It was found that many underground fuel storage tanks had over the years leaked fuel into the soil surrounding them. The bureaucrats decided that the contaminated soil had to be made safe for consumption — I guess that it must have been assumed that Albertans are prone to dig and dig deep into their precious soil and perhaps even eat it. At the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars in each individual case the offending fuel tanks and the soil surrounding them were excavated and then made safe. In some cases the soil was hauled away and disposed of in some fashion.
In the case of a service station that was located a mile east from our farm, the contract to haul the contaminated soil away was awarded to a local farmer. He hauled the soil away and reportedly dumped it into a ravine on his land. It is hard to understand how contaminated soil can be made safe by hauling it to a ravine located a few miles away and dumping it there, but the Alberta bureaucrats who dreamed up the make-work scheme surely must be able to explain their reasoning for that.

There were about six or seven service stations in various locations in Bruderheim over the years of whom there is no longer a trace other than the soil that they quite likely contaminated. One would have to dig for that. The contamination should not pose a hazard to anyone, as Bruderheim residents receive their drinking water from the City of Edmonton.

Nevertheless, for unfathomable reasons the Alberta bureaucrats' environmental zeal compelled them to make an example of Riske's Garage on 48th Ave, just east of Lambert's Hardware Store. They found what they were looking for, contaminated soil. They found it not only in the soil surrounding the fuel tanks of Riske's Garage but also in the soil on the property across the alley, on which there was a beautiful, solid, two-story family home. The home was condemned and had to be moved, so that the soil under it could be dug up as well.
   The Town of Bruderheim had acquired the home and advertised that it wanted to sell it to any takers. However, with the home being a fairly tall building, moving it would possibly have involved lifting a few power lines, making the move expensive and a bit difficult. Moreover, the home, although solid and sound, needed upgrading to modern standards, so prospective buyers were hardly looking at a bargain. The Town had wanted to sell the home for about $25,000, eventually dropped the price to a dollar, and still could not find a buyer.
   The home got demolished and was hauled away in pieces, removing another one of Bruderheim's historical landmarks. Apparently that made the Alberta bureaucrats happy, because they could now proceed with making the excavation of the soil contaminated by Riske's Garage bigger and better.
   The product of that make-work project was a mountain of excavated soil that for a long time dominated the decor of the heart of Bruderheim.   It seems that the soil under the back alley — which surely must have become contaminated, too, as the contamination seeped through the soil and moved to the property across the alley — never did get excavated and decontaminated.   Perhaps the environmentally challenged Alberta bureaucrats feel that, on paper, half a decontamination job looks better than none at all. Budgeted money always gets used up in a bureaucracy, as in any bureaucracy work expands to use up available time and resources. Even half a hole is still a substantial hole if it is made large enough. For some it is wholesome.

In this case the soil was not hauled away. Apparently the

environmentally obsessed Alberta bureaucrats had decided that it would be better, cheaper and safer to decontaminate the soil by airing it out right in town. That was done by moving the mountain of dirt a few times from one end to the other of the land east of the back alley. During the time that the moving mountain of dirt blessed us it was imperfectly covered up with heavy, white plastic strips, which are now, with a bit of other refuse, all that remains to show for the work that was done to use taxpayer money in the lots behind and west of the Shell Service Station.

Did all of that accomplish anything other than to spend a lot of money? Who knows, but apparently to pollute the air is a better alternative to leaving the offending contamination safely buried. At any rate, the mountain of soil eventually was used to fill in the big ugly hole that had been made in the process. The puddle of water at the bottom of the hole, with its poisonous blue-green algae, is no longer there and no longer poses a hazard to anyone — we hope. All that remains to be done now is for the Town of Bruderheim to ask the Alberta environmentally challenged bureaucrats to clean up the ugly mess they left behind. That mess surely is an eye sore. Should the Town enforce its nuisance bylaw and go after the property owner to get with it and get that done?

The Town of Bruderheim is the property owner. Here is an idea on how to get the problem solved. Get the crew in there. Have them clean up the place, haul the debris to the St. Michael dump, work the lot over and sow it with grass. Surely that would be a heck of a lot cheaper than to get the Alberta bureaucrats to do things right. That could be done in about a couple of days or maybe even less, and then things would look great again in that location. Is it cheaper and more convenient to argue with bureaucrats — with uncertain results that are long in coming — than it is to haul two truckloads of garbage to the St. Michael dump and to sow a little bit of grass? What is so difficult about that? However, the Town of Bruderheim is far more eager to tell someone who tipped over his rain barrel for the duration of winter that that poses an eye sore than to do something about nuisances on its own properties. Then again, if a whole backyard is filled up with dilapidated vehicles and tires that produce a never-ending supply of mosquitoes, that is seemed to be perfectly acceptable, and nothing is done about it.

To attract more families — families with children or planning to have children — to come to Bruderheim and settle here, a little extra is required. As good as Bruderheim looks, it must and can be made to look better. The removal of the eye-sore in the heart of Bruderheim, behind the Shell Service Station, certainly would help with that.

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Ideas on what to do to attract more people that wish to live in Bruderheim

Garbage dumps in town

A problem fixed