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Cleaning up Trout Lake
Students learn about the dangers of hazardous waste and keeping the community clean
Nathalie Heiberg-Harrison
On Oct. 13, Gerald Enns, a hazardous waste specialist with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, visited the school to give a presentation on hazardous materials. For about an hour, he talked to students in grades 3 to 8 about what hazardous waste is and the proper way to handle it. He also handed out workbooks to the class and spoke to them about batteries, old fuel, solvent, medication, paint and thermostats that contain mercury – all hazardous materials they're likely to encounter at home and in the community. "I was a little surprised how aware they were," Enns said of the environmentally-conscious students. "They understood that when anything gets into water, it's part of a big cycle. They didn't know the different kinds of hazardous waste that they had at home, but when I showed them the pictures they said, 'Yup, we have that.'" Enns also distributed recipe books for alternative cleaners, so students can cook up environmentally-friendly cleaning products at home themselves. In addition, students took home stickers that read "Household hazardous waste – no dumping" to put on hazardous materials found in their homes. "All the kids knew that when you get rid of hazardous waste that's toxic, it goes into the ground and it goes into the water and it gets into the fish and it gets into all the animals," Enns said. "Kids already know that you have to protect the environment, and if you tell the kids what's a hazardous waste, then the kids can tell their parents." Enns has done presentations for students in Fort Good Hope and Yellowknife before, and said it was clear students in Trout Lake love to talk about the environment. David Madden, the school's principal, said the presentation was a good review for the class. He added they were fortunate Enns, who was already in the community to do an inventory of waste in the dump, stopped by the school. "It was a good learning experience," Madden said. "I think here in the community, there's a good mix of protecting the environment and making sure that future generations will have clean water and animals to hunt and that kind of thing." Madden, who moved to Trout Lake this year, said in the coming weeks students will be making permanent signs for the dump to designate sections for hazardous waste. Enns said the most prevalent hazardous waste at the dump is used oil drums, because of the number of trucks, snowmobiles, excavators and loaders in the community. Some of the drums have been sitting at the dump since Trout Lake became a community, he said. During his visit from Oct. 13 to 15, Enns did an inventory of all the hazardous waste and prepared much of it for winter road transport. "A lot of it had been forgotten," he said. Hopefully this winter that will change, he added.
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