Tignish residents fear they may never again be able to use beach due to sludge dumping

Some Tignish residents are still unhappy about how materials dredged from a local harbour were dumped onto Myrick Shore Beach this past March. 

Back when it was first deposited, Tignish resident Jamie Perry thought the sludge could contain metals and motor oils. It certainly smelled like sewage, he told CBC News.

"My neighbour … has to close her windows across the road [when] the wind gets blowing east," Perry said at the time. "So, it's not good. It smells like… rotten sewer."

But now he's more concerned about what's in the sludge, especially when he walks his dog on the beach.

"He cut his paw on something sharp last week... a piece of metal or something that's in there, but he will be OK."

Perry said the sludge has hardened, and now looks like concrete.

"It changed a bit. It's got covered by sand; that's about all it's doing. It's not really deteriorating — if it is, very slowly. I hope we get a big hurricane to wash it away...

"We may never be able to use this beach again. It might just stay like this. It doesn't look like it's going anywhere fast."

Perry isn't the only one who is still unhappy.

Jamie Lee Chaisson grew up in Tignish, near the beach. She said she has found scraps of metal, glass and garbage among the sludge as well.

"They found, like, a drone. It's just honestly a bunch of metal, it seems like whatever was thrown overboard at the wharf… It's everywhere — it's metal, it's plastic, it's not obviously good."

Chaisson said the area is now covered with sand, but the sludge is still visible.

"It honestly looks like an asphalt ground. When you get closer to the water, obviously you can't see it as much, but up toward the cape, it's just a whole lot of black, looks like asphalt. Then you get closer and it's just hard and smells," she said.

In response to questions from CBC News, the P.E.I. government sent an email saying the dredging was done under the auspices of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans small craft harbours division.