Blueberry Picker's "un" Sanitation

To: Geraldine Auston
BC Blueberry Council

CC: Rick Dulat
Grower Liaison

John van Dongen
Minister of Agriculture

Mike de Jong
MLA Mt. Lehman

Mayor Mary Reeves
City of Abbotsford

I wish to thank Mayor Mary Reeves and her office for getting back to my complaint about my neighbouring blueberry fields so quickly. I understand that there are meetings scheduled for Monday about the problems with blueberry farms in general.

When I awoke this morning, I saw three bus loads of pickers arrive at the fields and start picking berries. Within no time two of the pickers walked away from the pack of pickers and towards my house. They defecated and urinated in plain site of my house and then walked back to join the rest of the pickers. There are no toilet facilities on the field at this time, and I do not know if any will be added later.

As I said in my complain yesterday, about the bird scaring noise device it was going while the pickers were in the field, until one of them turned it off. Late last night another speaker was added to the unit and it was placed closer than one hundred meters to our house.

The only good thing about today was it was raining, for if the sun was shining, the pickers would be leaving large amounts of garbage and empty milk container all over the field, but I guess that will come with better weather.
I. S. of Mt. Lehman

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