Province promises cleanup of former Vernon homeless camp

It’s been two months since homeless campers where evicted from a site along Highway 97 in Vernon.

However, some of their garbage still remains, raising concerns about contamination of a nearby creek.

The province is now promising the mess will be cleaned up within the next week.

The campers are long gone, they were served notice in January they’d have to leave the site, but on Thursday morning a lot of garbage still remained, including needles.

“It’s disgusting, totally disgusting,” Vernon resident Bob Mayer said.

“Downstream is a thousand times worse, it is floating in the water.”

He’s right. Not far to the south near the intersection of Highway 97 and 48 Avenue, the remains of what looks like entire campsites litter the shore of a creek and float in the water.

The debris included all manner of garbage and has Mayer concerned the water is being polluted.

While Global News was filming on Thursday a contracted cleanup crew coincidently showed up to start work on the more northern area.

They said that the area wasn’t fully cleaned up after campers were evicted in January because ice and snow covered the ground and the garbage.

READ MORE: Vernon homeless encampment busted up for safety reasons

The crew’s efforts leave the more northern area much tidier.

However, that still leaves the floating debris to the south.

The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure said this second round of cleanup work that began on Thursday had been previously scheduled.

The province promised the entire space will be cleared within the next week.

The ministry also said it would assess the area to ensure there are no environmental impacts to the creek.