McNabs Island bathroom bandit nabs toilet parts

A bathroom bandit has nabbed solar panels and a battery from a composting toilet on McNabs Island.

The composting toilet isn't the island's only public washroom facility, so visitors to the island will not have to resort to answering the call of nature, in nature. But it's the most modern, and the preferred option to the island's five old, second-hand outhouses.

While the composting toilet still works, the solar panels and battery were key components to the function of its fan, which helps to eliminate foul odour.

Crime stinks

Cathy McCarthy, president of the Friends of McNabs Island Society, says they realized the parts were missing this week.

"I was really disgusted by this vandalism and criminal behaviour, because McNabs is a provincial park. It's a national historic site. Everyone who visits McNabs just loves it," she told CBC.

McCarthy believes someone relieved the island of its composting toilet parts sometime this spring. Although she's not sure exactly when. She says someone would have gone to a lot of trouble to take the solar panels and battery from the island.

"They had to have a boat, and they had to have a ladder, climb up on top of the Clivus Multrum composting toilet, take off the two solar panels, then take the battery and all the components," she said. "They did leave the fan. I guess they weren't interested in the fan. But they stole everything else."

The thieves would then have had to make their getaway by boat. McNabs is the largest island in Halifax harbour, and about a 25 minutes boat ride from downtown Halifax.  

Yuck factor

The Friends of McNabs has turned to social media to try to track down the person, or people, who pillaged their public toilet.

The society paid approximately $25,000, plus installation costs, for the composting toilet in 2011.

McCarthy estimates the stolen parts are worth well over $1,000. She says the parts were not insured, and will need to be replaced soon because June is a busy month for visits to the island.

"We get a lot of youth who go over for their field trips, and a lot of these kids are city kids, and they have this yuck factor when they think about outhouses," she said.

She said with the Clivus Multrum composting toilet, there was no yuck factor at all. Now that the exhaust fan's not working "there's definitely a yuck factor now."

The Friends of McNabs Island Society is offering a reward for the stolen solar panels and battery.

"Surely someone noticed somebody with a boat with two large solar panels in it," McCarthy said.

Anyone who saw something suspicious that could be connected to this crime can contact police, or the Friends of McNab's Island Society on their website: www.mcnabsisland.ca.