6 people fined for trespassing at Albion Falls

Six people will soon be $135 poorer, as the city has made good on its promise to ticket people who jump the fence at Albion Falls and venture off the posted trail.

City spokesperson Ann Lamanes says bylaw officers have issued six tickets under the parks bylaw this month.

"We had five just this past weekend," she said.

It's a move that comes as the city attempts to curb months of deaths and injuries at the popular waterfall attraction. Councillors voted earlier this month to put up "no trespassing signs" and start fining people who ignore them.

Last year, Hamilton emergency crews performed 25 rope rescues, the highest number of rescues in at least seven years. Six of those were at Albion Falls.

The trend continues this year, with numerous rescues at Albion Falls. In June, a Toronto-based photographer fell and died there.

But all the publicity about the city's crackdown is reverberating across Hamilton, says Gord Costie, the director of conservation area services with the Hamilton Conservation Authority (HCA).

He says he thinks that the publicity about Albion has helped curb dangerous behaviour at other waterfalls in the area.

"Thus far, people have been pretty good for the most part of staying on the right side of fencing," he said.

The HCA oversees several waterfalls in the area, like Tew's, Webster's, Tiffany Falls, and part of the Devil's Punchbowl. Staff monitor those areas on a daily basis, and are joined by paid duty police officers on weekends when crowds swell.

Crowds have shrunk a little this year compared to the last couple, Costie said. "It hasn't been the same traffic as 2015 and 2016," he said. "But it has been a wetter season."

Online reaction has been mixed to a mandatory waterfall shuttle bus that's being used to help manage crowds and cars at Spencer Gorge and Webster's Falls, but Costie says the program has been very successful.

By implementing the shuttle system, the HCA has managed to move 5,000 vehicles out of the Greensville area where they were clogging up roadways, and into a parking lot on Highway 5, he said.

"It has been a tremendous success for us."

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