Manure dumped at pop-up injection site at Raphael Brunet Park

Overdose Prevention Ottawa says manure was dumped at Raphael Brunet Park Thursday morning, at the site of their unsanctioned pop-up injection tents.

Organizer Catherine Hacksell tells Newstalk 580 CFRA she was walking near the park around 9:30 a.m., when she came across a man pulling the fertilizer out of a trailer hitched to the back of his car.

“I guess he was making a statement about his opposition to the overdose prevention site that is set up there every day,” she says.

Hacksell says the fertilizer was dumped right around where some of their tents are usually set up.

“Unless the City tidies it up, we’ll probably have to make some adjustments and move the site over,” she says, “ironically, probably closer the curb, towards one of the neighbours who is not very happy with us being in the park.”

Hacksell shot videos of what happened, and said she called City By-law.

“To me, it’s just another example of the crap – literally and figuratively – that a lot of the volunteers and guests have to deal with on the day-to-day basis at this site,” she says.

By-law confirms an individual was fined $260 for dumping waste in contravention of the Parks and Facilities By-law.

In an interview with CFRA, Guy Annable says he was there to spread the manure as part of a “fall fertilizer program” that he’s participated in at Raphael Brunet Park for two years.

“It runs usually around Thanksgiving,” he says. “We started the application of fertilizer [Thursday] morning, which will continue over the Thanksgiving weekend until the park is fertilized for the winter time.”

Rideau-Vanier councillor Mathieu Fleury says, “This is not part of any city program.”

Annable says fertilizer was not spread in the tent area, but on the eastern outskirts of the park. He says the tent area will be covered on the weekend.

He adds the aim is to “revitalize” the park.

“What happened is a culmination of us trying to repair the park,” he says. “The 40 day occupation of the park has trampled the grass in the three tent areas. So, we’re going to aerate, and we’re going to try to restore the grass due to the occupation that has caused it to be trampled over the last 40 days.”

“So, basically, that’s where we stand,” Annable says. “We’ve got to take back our park and repair the damage that was done from 40 days of occupation.”