Kamloops City Councillors say it was a successful first edition of its Clean the Beach Day initiative this past Sunday.

Councillor Mike O’Reilly – who put forward the idea of a beach clean up last September – says the roughly 130 attendees collected about 1,300 pounds of garbage from city-owned beaches near Riverside Park and Overlander Park.

“It wasn’t just about cleaning up the beach. It was a community event. It was the pride that these people were taking, that we all took,” O’Reilly said.

“I believe about 30 kids took part in this and it’s instilling this in them at a young age to take care of our environment and to pick up the garbage when you see a piece as opposed to just walking by.”

Councillor Margot Middleton also said the event was a success, though she said she was dismayed to find a number of people hadn’t cleaned up after their dogs in Pioneer Park.

“We picked up multiple, multiple, multiple bags of dog poo that would have been into the river,” Middleton said. “I’d like to make a little bit of an ask to the dog owners, please pack your dog poo out with you and dispose of it properly and don’t throw it along the river bank.”

It wasn’t only garbage that was picked up, Councillor Stephen Karpuk said he found evidence of drug use including sharps and foils.

“I found literally packets of drugs that someone had dropped or maybe it washed out of their pocket as they were bathing in the river. Who knows.”

Perhaps the most interesting find was made by Councillor Bill Sarai and Jeremy Heighton, the Executive Director of the North Shore Business Improvement Association.

“We did find a shelter on Overlander Beach side, and that’s where close to the tent we found a duffle bag full of machetes and knives, bit that was the only one that we saw. We saw nobody there and we saw no shelters,” Sarai said.

Billed as a family-friendly event to beautify the beaches during a time of low water, the City plans to hold a similar event every year as close to Earth Day – April 22 – as possible.

“It was really powerful and families made an afternoon of it,” O’Reilly said. “And kudos to staff for being a part of that. There was a lot of staff that were there on the Sunday that took part in the event and made it happen.”

Mayor suggests people go into encampments

Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson, who was not at the Clean the Beach event, said he believed the event should have included people going into homeless encampments along the river bank.

“A one-day deal is great and it was awesome, but I would encourage you there’s really no conflict,” Hamer-Jackson said. “If you go down onto the beaches and talk to the people in the camps, you can actually learn a lot about them and find out why they’re there, where they came from and all that kind of thing.”

Ahead of the event, the City’s Social and Community Development Supervisor, Ty Helgason, said the NSBIA’s Clean Team would sweep the beaches for sharps and Community Services Officers would be on hand in case of any interactions with encampments.

O’Reilly took issue with the mayor’s suggestion, saying it a majority liability issue for the City.

“The beach cleanup was done with risk management involved to make sure it was a safe environment for people to go and partake in this event,” O’Reilly said. “I advise people to not go and just check out homeless camps and have conversations. I think there’s high risk there. For any elected official to say, ‘Hey, you should go do that,’ it’s putting the corporation at risk so I advise people not to do that.”

Hamer-Jackson countered to say while people in encampments live near the river, “they’re citizens and they’ve got stories.”

“Walking into a high-rise apartment that’s worth millions of dollars or onto the riverbank, they’re still citizens,” the mayor said. “Those people had a vote just like those people up in the penthouse. I don’t believe for one minute that you’re at risk because they’re regular citizens. I go in there and I’m not afraid.”