Trail to P.E.I. school blocked by trees after Fiona took a month to clear
MONTAGUE, P.E.I. — Margaret Clow didn’t need to see any of the youngsters get damage and got down to discover options to a security drawback. What she discovered as a substitute was jurisdictional buck-passing.
Clow lives in Montague, on a street that ends with a path to the native highschool. After the late September post-tropical storm Fiona knocked down 1000’s of bushes in P.E.I. – together with 23 in Clow’s yard – the trail was blocked. With college students going between Montague Regional Excessive Faculty and Parkman Avenue every day, the bushes made Clow involved.
Children needed to both climb over damaged limbs or discover a means by way of the extra dense woods beside the path. Clow, a mom of two college students, seen a few of them had mobility points and struggled to get by way of.
She began making calls. The Public Faculties Department (PSB) and faculty weren’t a lot assist, she discovered, as a result of neither owned the land. The PSB instructed her a conservation group operates the world.
The path was nonetheless blocked when SaltWire Community spoke with Clow on Oct. 25. However, by the point a reporter received to Montague for photos, the path was clear.
“It’s fairly harmful for leaving it. It was left for a month. There was different bushes down, however the college did reduce them, the opposite ones that had been down all alongside,” stated Clow, whose two kids use the path.
Clow was happy to see the work lastly carried out however stated it took a lot too lengthy. And one other difficulty nonetheless remained: with so many bushes uprooted, there have been holes alongside the aspect of the path.
Clow worries these will turn into muddy and troublesome to see with the arrival of late fall and winter snow. That’s why she desires cleanup to occur straight away.
“A variety of the youngsters need to stroll by way of there to highschool. Those in Montague, the bus doesn’t decide them up for the college. They need to stroll except you’ve received your mother and father to drive you.”
Scorching potato
Jennifer Redmond, senior communications officer with the PSB, says the colleges department confirmed whether or not it owned the property and addressed the scenario as quickly because it was conscious of the path blockage.
The PSB doesn’t personal the land and, whereas the department will not be answerable for cleansing property owned by others, PSB employees do clear up their very own land when it has particles, Redmond stated.
“It is very important word that the PSB wouldn’t be capable of guarantee the protection of a path by way of the woods however does try and clear particles on PSB property as quickly as attainable. With any weather-related injury or particles, as soon as the PSB is conscious of upkeep wants on our property, they’re addressed in a well timed method.”
When Clow spoke with the PSB, the official she talked to instructed her the land belonged to a conservation group. Clow stated she wasn’t positive which group they stated.
Nevertheless, the PSB instructed SaltWire that the land belongs to the province.
SaltWire emailed three attainable departments this may fall underneath: Schooling and Lifelong Studying; Agriculture and Land; Setting, Vitality and Local weather Motion.
One communications officer, Katie MacDonald with the Division of Setting, responded to ask for extra particulars in regards to the location however didn’t reply additional after SaltWire despatched a labelled map.
For Clow, the recent potato and finger-pointing between departments was irritating when she was attempting to get solutions.
“No one knew something,” she stated. “You don’t know which (authorities division) to go to.”
Logan MacLean is a range reporter with the SaltWire Community in Prince Edward Island. He may be reached by electronic mail at [email protected] and adopted on Twitter @loganmaclean94.
