Cameras up following dumping 

Hidden cameras have been set up along Seaway Road in the hope of deterring illegal dumping. Council chief Jeremiah Johnson said visible ones will also soon be put up on the telephone poles at the entrance of the road too.

“It seems to be ramping up again, the dumping, so something needed to be done,” said Johnson, who has been cleaning up the area for years now, long before he became a Council chief last summer. “Luckily, I’m on Council now, and I have a few more resources at my disposal, so we can get some things done.”

The cameras that were put came from the Kahnawake Environment Protection Office (KEPO), which already had some extra trail cameras on hand, Johnson said. 

“Hopefully, it’s going to be a very good preventative measure to keep people off the territory,” he said. “And for the locals who might think it’s a good idea to dump their trash down that road, it’s going to hopefully make them think twice, because we are watching, and we are going to prosecute if we can catch you.”

The addition of new cameras in the area - which are not the first to be put up there - comes following a police investigation launched into dumping in the area last month. 

No suspect has been identified yet, said Kyle Zachary, the spokesperson for the Kahnawake Peacekeepers. Should they be caught, they could be fined under Kahnawake’s sanitation law. Non-locals can also be ordered to a hearing at the Court of Kahnawake under the law, he said.

There’s yet to be another incident reported to the authorities since then. 

Kaniet White has been cleaning up the area for years now and often patrols the area at night in his car to keep an eye out for people looking for somewhere to offload their trash. White was also among those last month that helped clean up over 10 piles of waste left behind then, which he did using a loan transport vehicle. 

“It’s been an ongoing issue for as long as I can remember, locals and non-locals dumping on the Seaway after hours,” said White, who often goes out to the shooting range there with his family. “It had gotten so bad that people weren’t even able to drive in to use the shooting range, because of the amount of debris.”

Some drivers get flat tires when they drive through the area, White said, because of plywood with exposed nails often left there.

He’s put up hidden trail cameras there himself, too, but unfortunately the image quality wasn’t high enough to identify anyone. 

Cameras are a good start, but more could be done to tackle the issue. Even when people get caught by the Peacekeepers, they’re not always fined, White has heard. Sometimes, they’re just ordered to clean up what they left behind.

“It’s a slap on the wrist for them,” White said. “They know that they’re not going to get fined, and if it comes to it, it’s just the cleanup that they have to do. So you’re saving hundreds of dollars, if not thousands, by just coming out here.”

The Mohawk Council of Kahnawake (MCK) used to employ conservation officers that would patrol and protect the territory against dumping, but that hasn’t been the case for many years now. That also needs to change, said White.

“That’s when it really started to get bad with people dumping illegally, and a lot of other sketchy activities in the back roads,” he said.

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