What would you do if your everyday life was punctuated by repeated gunshots, revving engines and a constant fear that your house and livelihood were at high risk of being burned to the ground?
It’s not a hypothetical question, but the reality for people living around the Echo Lake area.
Last week, we looked at the scale and type of problems occurring in the southeast corner of Westlock County. They included trespassing, dangerous firearm use, property damage, trash dumping, stolen vehicle dumping and threats made towards residents.
This time we look at what’s being done about the area described as Westlock’s ‘war zone.’
The truthful answers is, not much beyond what they have already done and continue to do.
Over the last few months and years, locals have diligently gone about creating and developing support for grassroots action, reporting issues to the relevant authorities and lobbied for action.
Not wanting to just complain, the group of concerned residents who spoke at the Westlock County council meeting May 23 also brought three areas of suggested action.
During the meeting they tabled a petition calling on Westlock County to take three courses of action. 1 - the closure of the public access to Crown lands at Township Road 592A and Range Road 234. 2 - law enforcement in the area on long weekends and during hunting seasons. 3 - the supervision of the Echo Lake campgrounds.
“As a community we wrote up a request for support and identified three things that we think that the council could help to change the reputation in our area,” said Natalie Langkopf, speaking at the meeting.
Two of those three requests might be hard for the county to achieve.
While it could be possible to put up a gate, or some other way of preventing access to the roads in question, that action in itself does not stop people from using what are essentially public access ways and it really only deals with quads — hunters and other foot access would still be allowed.
Likewise the county could pass a bylaw relating to use of those roads or the area as a whole, but there is a reasonable question about whether such a bylaw would come into conflict with other laws, or be effective.
The roads in question are generally public byways and currently people have a right to use them, especially if they provide access to Crown land.
Would blocking roads work to limit access when the main offenders — people who don’t seem to care about the law — are already willing to trespass on private property and commit vandalism?
When it comes to law enforcement there are three main players who theoretically could provide enhanced oversight — the county, RCMP and the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Resource Development (ESRD), which on May 24 changed its name to Alberta Environment and Parks (AEP).
AEP doesn’t actually provide any enforcement services, but refers complaints to the office of the Solicitor General which sends Fish and Wildlife officers.
“The third thing we have asked for, and we don’t think is unreasonable at all, is to have law enforcement present on long weekends and hunting seasons,” said Langkopf.
“I know we do have a peace officer who has been there the last week or two since the fires.
“One occasional peace officer who’s able to be there some of the time is not enough.”
Westlock County has one peace officer and one community enhanced policing officer, who is a Mountie and not controlled or tasked by the county.
The peace officer looks after all of Westlock County, which has a total area of just under 3,200 km2.
The Westlock RCMP Detachment has 13 general duties staff, including the community enhanced police officer, and six traffic officers. Most of those officers work in shifts.
There are two Fish and Wildlife officers for the Westlock, Thorhild and Sturgeon county areas.
At any one time you could reasonably expect to count the number of law enforcement people available to police the southeast corner of the county on one hand.
While the petition calls for extra policing during long weekends and hunting seasons those times are also periods when many areas in the county receive an influx of visitors — when there are more people at Echo Lake, there are more people everywhere.
The final request from residents was to have the campground staffed.
This is something that’s directly within the ability of Westlock County and has been investigated since August 2014, although, the creation of the role is yet to be confirmed.
The county is, like the residents, in many ways, stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place.
CAO Peter Kelly said he became aware of the scale of the issues since the recent fire that uncovered the clandestine gun range.
Reeve Bud Massey has known about the issue since coming to office in 2014, but was under the impression the issues had been somewhat addressed by the Echo Lake Campground, not compounded by it.
“I though we had addressed a significant part of the problems by creating Echo Lake campground,” said Massey.
“I had never heard the kind of grievances, or concerns … never the kind of grievances expressed at our council meeting.”
Kelly went on to say, “So the issues about bullets in homes, and buildings, even some of the stuff after the fire wasn’t to the degree that was disclosed in council.”
At the base level, the county has no control over Crown land and can only make laws and enforce them around public spaces.
Yet, it is on the frontline when dealing with the concerns of residents.
The county is the most visible, easily accessible and responsive player in the game.
There is also a level of mixed messaging the county has been receiving on its role in, and power over, the situation.
Massey and Kelly both say that in meetings with high-level officials of what was the ESRD, they were directly told their capacity to intervene was limited.
This differs from what some residents said at a recent county council meeting. In contact they had with ESRD, they were essentially told that the county could have power over, and can take control of Crown land.
“We do have concerns with whose jurisdiction, the overlapping jurisdiction, and of a particular concern to me is some of the mixed messaging,” Massey said.
To confuse the matter even more a number of sources have said that the old ESRD has been actively trying to push responsibility for the quarters of Crown land onto the county.
It’s an accusation, from Massey’s point of view, that has some truth to it.
“It does appear that that would be the case,” he said. “When a higher level of government offers to share with a lower level of government, it usually costs the lower level of government financially.”
Kelly was more moderate on the issue.
“It [ESRD] is trying to involve the local governments more than they have in the past. That is true. It’s not fully, but involves us,” he said. “They’re asking for our participation, not to do the whole thing.”
While increasing the availability of law enforcement in the area might help to resolve the issue it would mean the county would have to hire more peace officers.
Even if the county had more money, Massey questions the size of the task.
“The provincial government has cut back on their enforcement people and where’s that off loaded to?” he said.
“How many peace officers would we have to have in order to be able to enforce the kind of legislation that these actions are demanding?”
Of all the players with a stake in the game Alberta Environment and Parks has the biggest hand.
It’s the public land that draws people into the area and public land that is being used as a staging post for the activities that are causing grief for residents.
There are 21 quarters of Crown land in the area and they are a mixture of different designations. Some areas, like the one with the shooting range, are termed vacant public land. Other quarters in the area are leased from the province for grazing or mineral extraction.
Governance over the land is set out in the Public Lands Act as well as other processes, such as ministerial orders.
During an interview with a spokesperson for the AEP, it was not clear if their attention was on the block with the shooting range, or all the blocks, many of which experience the same kind negative use described by residents.
AEP has to balance the concerns of locals against the right of all Albertans to access the province’s public land.
“Albertans themselves have the right to enjoy those lands,” said Jamie Hanlon, public affairs officer for Alberta Environment and Parks. “They have the responsibility to ensure they are using them respectfully, in ways that promote stewardship and sustainability.”
AEP works to ensure all users are achieving that stewardship and sustainability goal in a number of ways. It makes agreements with people who lease quarters and have staff that manage and monitor that land use.
“We would also expect that because these lands also belong to Albertans, if Albertans are aware these lands are being used improperly that they would contact us and advise us,” Hanlon said. “That is one way to ensure that we’ll be able to curb or correct issues occurring on the lands.”
AEP said that if residents have complaints about the way people are using public land in the province to advise them via their 800 number.
That is something locals have been doing for awhile.
“When a complaint is received we’re able to action an investigation into it so we’re able to determine what’s going on,” Hanlon said.
The agency does keep records of each complaint made, but Hanlon was unable to say if here was a protocol for marrying up complaints in areas. He also said that there had not been “significant” complaints about the public land in the southeast corner of the county.
It’s also not clear if formal protocols for receiving and sharing information between different levels of government and law enforcement exist, or are used.
“We do work with our partners and there is information that is shared,” Hanlon said.
“As to types of information or the levels and quality of information that is shared between those parties, I wouldn’t be able to comment on that directly.”
It is not known how long the department keeps records of complaints received and how it goes about reporting outcomes.
Part of the problem the department has with enforcing the law is that there is so much of it — about 50 per cent of the province is public land.
Another element to the enforcement issue is AEP doesn’t have its own policing service, which is provided by the Solicitor General through the power of Fish and Wildlife officers.
Hanlon hinted that AEP was poised to make an announcement in the next few weeks on a plan to address issues in the area, but was unwilling to reveal any details about it.
He was also unwilling to say exactly which quarters of Crown land would be affected by the plan, or if it was limited to the quarter with the shooting range.
“We do recognize that people are interested and concerned,” Hanlon said. “We have a strategy that will hopefully lead to a change in the behaviors that are occurring and how people do use that space.
“When we do have something that we are to communicate to the public, when it is formalized, we’ll put some communication tools in place to make sure it’s announced formally.”
Sources have told the Westlock News that only the land where the shooting range was found will be part of AEPs plan, and it involves closing access for 28 days. It is not known what AEP will do once access to the quarter has been restricted.
Hanlon was not able to confirm if AEP, or the old ESRD, had tried to, or was trying to, pass responsibility for the Crown land to counties.
“It’s not something I would have information on and not something I would be able to comment on,” he said.
“Essentially all I can tell you is that we are responsible for public lands — that falls under our purview and that is our responsibility.”
If there’s one group who has a hand in keeping track of, and confronting the issues in, the Echo Lake area, it’s the RCMP.
The Westlock News reached out to the commander of Westlock RCMP Detachment, Staff Sgt. Dwayne Rawson for an interview on the issue but he was unavailable.
His comments on this are taken from a public forum section of a recent Westlock County council meeting where residents’ brought the concerns forward.
Staff Sgt. Rawson wasn’t scheduled to meet with the petitioners, but their appeals to the council went so long, he ended up fielding their concerns directly.
The RCMP have the scope to confront most, if not all, the of the issues raised occurring in the area.
But again, like the county’s peace officer and the Fish and Wildlife officers, the vast size of the geographical area as a whole and the wide range of issues the RCMP is required to cover, limits their ability to be in the Echo Lake area all the time.
Also, like the AEP, the RCMP is required to balance the concerns of locals with the right of everyone to access and use Crown land.
“If people are out quadding on that Crown land, all they have to do is have registration and insurance and there’s nothing we can do about it,” Rawson said.
He also said that without evidence it can be hard to prosecute offences and suggested that residents take photos to help build a case.
“The one thing you need to do is get a hold of licence plate number off the picture, but you have got to be prepared to go to court,” Rawson said. “If they are trespassing on your land, you have to be prepared to go to court.”
When some locals argued that quadders were a large problem and the police should do more to follow up on issues like trespassing and unregistered machines on public roads, Rawson was clear.
“I’m telling you right now, I will not have any of my members chase somebody on a quad” he said. “You just put people at risk for no reason.
“We can find out where their vehicles are and we can wait for them, but we are not going to chase a motorbike.”
While empathetic to a point, some locals don’t think the Staff Sergeant’s position is good enough.
It was hopped that Rawson would qualify his no chasing quads position with a policy or directive from command, but that hasn’t been possible.
It seems there’s something everyone can agree on, the solution is not going to be easy.
Hanlon knows it and in some ways his department is trying to find a solution.
“We’re not simply looking at an incident that is easily dealt with by a single phone call, or an issue of education. If were looking an in issue that requires greater detail and greater responsibility and focus of all the partners to come together then it requires greater coordination,” he said.
