Bay Roberts man knee deep in hurricane clean up

By Mark Squibb/November 4, 2022

Seeing the photos and videos of the destruction caused by Hurricane Fiona left many of us heartbroken and wondering what we could do to help.

While our thoughts were turned to the devastation and havoc brought upon communities such as Port aux Basques, very few of us likely turned our attention to the debris that was swept out to sea and the potential problems that will cause — unless, of course, you are Clean Harbours Initiative (CHI) founder Shawn Bath of Bay Roberts.

“As we were following the storm up the eastern seaboard, once we saw its path when it hit here in Newfoundland, we knew there was going to be a lot of damage and a lot of debris,” said Bath. “Shortly after it hit, we didn’t have the money to come here and do a clean up, we didn’t know how we were going to get here, but we knew we were going to get to it, we had to. We’re Clean Harbour Initiatives, this is what we do. There’s no one else in Newfoundland doing what we do, and this place was definitely going to need our assistance.”

Bath and a small crew left for the west coast on September 29, just days after Fiona’s rampage of destruction, funded largely by donations given through GoFundMe.

Bath said folks came through for CHI with donations, and some folks even donated jerry cans of gas to help get the crew cross the island.

A lot of the debris the crew has been hauling out of the waters in and around Port aux Basque includes fishing gears and nets.

“Right now, in this area, in the southwest coast of Newfoundland, they say there are about 1,000 to 1,500 nets lost in a bunch of harbours,” said Bath. “And these nets are going to be spread out and catching lobsters, crabs, and whatever. They’ll fish forever, if they’re not taken out of the water. Especially over here, where they have such a good lobster fishery. These nets are going to decimate the lobster fishery over here if they’re not taken out.”

Bath, who is from Twillingate originally, but for the last 11 years has hung his hat in Bay Roberts, started CHI in 2018, saying that as no one else was cleaning harbours, he figured he ought to.

“I had kind of hoped that the government would have had a program on the go to clean this up,” said Bath. “But, they didn’t, so if I didn’t do it, it didn’t look like it was going to be done.”

Bath had spent over 20 years diving in local harbours picking sea urchins prior to forming CHI. It afforded him opportunity to see the problem up close and in person.

“We were picking sea urchins, half of the time off old rubber tires and off garbage,” said Bath. “There was just garbage everywhere.”

CHI is largely funded through GoFundMe and private donations.

“The vast majority of our funds come from GoFundMe and e-mail transfers,” said Bath. We get some government grants, but very few, and very little grants at that.”

He confesses his surprise that government has not done more to support CHI.

“The need is there, and we’ve proven ourselves now over the last four years that we have the ability to take the stuff out of the water and we do it efficiently and safely,” said Bath. “So, in my mind, there’s no reason the government shouldn’t be funding us on a lot bigger scale than what they have been. But there’s just so much red tape in getting money out of the government for this kind of stuff. When you actually get grants from the government, so much of it has to go to towards other things, like administration, rather than the actual clean-up. Like, if you get a $40,000 grant, you ‘ll pretty much get $10,00 that goes toward the actual clean up and the rest has to go to other things.”

Through the ‘The Southwest Coast Emergency Clean Up!’ GoFundMe, CHI has raised over $7,300 for clean up efforts on the west coast.

Bath said there’s a winter’s worth or work left to be done in the region, but the group’s capability is dependent entirely on receiving funding, whether from private donors or government.

Apart from donating, he said people can get on the horn to their local politicians to seek more government support for the program.

“There’s definitely a need for what we’re doing,” said Bath. “We’re not looking to make money out of this, we’re just looking to get our bills paid.”

Bath estimates that over 300,000 pounds of garbage has been removed from harbours through CHI clean ups since the organization’s inception in 2018.

“Because of Fiona, we’re seeing mostly fishing gear and stages,” said Bath. “But in general, tires, car batteries, things that fisherman had on their boats that they didn’t want, electronics, all of that type of stuff, that’s pretty much what we haul off the bottom of the harbours.”