A community advocate in Cowichan, B.C., says the province should have known about an illegal dumping site near Duncan at least a decade ago.

A newspaper story by Peter Rusland in 2013 reports on a fire that happened at the landfill.

“The whole of Duncan… the city and all around were covered in mystery smoke,” Rusland told Global News.

“On a Friday night, this whole dump that we had seen before the piles of garbage… I saw that all on fire.”

Rusland’s front page story suggests that the governments either did or should have known about the dump at least 12 years ago.

This week, the Cowichan Tribes said that while they tried to stop the dumping, it was ultimately up to the federal government to take action.

The federal government told Global News that it also sent cease-and-desist let

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