A man claiming to be a Calgary firefighter says he has seen thousands of liters of toxic waste disposed of at the Tsuu T'ina landfill. The landfill is the site of a fire that burned over at least a two-day period earlier this month. He was one of roughly 150 members of the public who attended a town hall meeting in the S.W. community of Woodlands called by Alderman Diane Colley-Urqhart to discuss the impacts of the fire.

Stressing that he was not speaking as a Calgary Fire Department representative and asking that he not be identified, he said that he was at the Tsuu T'ina reserve landfill in 1995, when he saw a vacuum truck pull up to the dump and empty its contents of what he is certain was hazardous material.

"This vacu-truck pulls up at the Tsuu T'ina dump, lifts its tank... and opens up its eight-inch valve at the back and dumps out this black goo. And I could smell it, I knew what it was. It was a material that's considered toxic material that would not be allowed at a Calgary city landfill... This truck, I don't know how many gallons they have on them, he dumped for 10 minutes... The guy had rubber gloves on, so I'm assuming it was dangerous."

He says he contacted the Alberta government about the incident and was advised to contact the federal government.

"The federal government said, 'it's none of your business. You can't do anything about it, it's on federal land.' ... I did an informal survey because I live on 24 Street and Anderson Road and I watched how many vacu-trucks went by that day and it was up to about 15, plus the amount of other material that was going from demolition companies to the dump. I've made my concerns clear to the city, nothing happened."

He believes the landfill must be tested to determine what it contains and whether there's a danger of the toxic substances he believes are there entering the water system or were in the smoke from the recent fire.