Signal Hill being used as a dump, Parks Canada warns

What do a kitchen sink, a toilet and some lumber have in common? They were all found dumped on Signal Hill, part of a trash trend that worries Parks Canada.

Signal Hill, which the federal agency manages as a national historic site, is one of the best-known tourist attractions in St. John's.

Guglielmo Marconi received the first trans-Atlantic wireless transmission there in 1901, and flags and cannon fire from the summit were used in the 1700s to signal to ships. Hundreds of residents use the park daily for walks.

Parks Canada employee Scott Andrews said officials believe the trash is a locally generated problem.

"I'm venturing a guess that I don't think it's our tourists [who] are coming here to see our pristine environment [and are] throwing out their coffee cups and their bag of garbage through their car windows," Andrews said.

Workers need safety gear

Andrews said the problem has significantly worsened in the last two years.

"When I came to work here in 2001, we'd come to work in the morning and we would expect to find a beer bottle here and there, maybe a coffee cup or a fast food bag," he said.

"Now we'll come to work and have at least one person suit up in safety equipment to pick up syringes and other kinds of things."

A similar problem has been reported across Freshwater Bay, at Cape Spear, which is also a national historic site.

Andrews said workers at both sites have filled at least 80 bags of garbage from the grounds so far this year.

Andrews said managers are trying to find solutions to the trash problem. He urged walkers to hold on to their trash, and said some Signal Hill visitors bring their own plastic bags to pick up other people's trash.