No easy answers to dirty problem of animal waste.

Byline: Diane Dietz The Register-Guard

An environmental conundrum is made plain every six weeks at the Alton Baker Dog Park when crews hoist two 500-pound bags of dog doo out of an underground disposal station.

"We need a backhoe to actually lift them out of the ground because it's pretty much a 7 1/2 -foot-long sausage (full) of individually wrapped nuggets," said Richard Zucker, Eugene Parks amenities supervisor.

With Eugene dog park patrons picking up after their pooches and dumping the waste in special bins or regular garbage cans, park crews haul out at least 18 tons of canine fecal matter a year. And that's just the tip of the pile.

Lane County's 75,000 dogs generate an estimated 6,800 tons a year.

Less than one-fifth flows into the county landfill tied in old plastic bags, to be mummified and preserved for the ages. Much of the rest sinks into the ground or washes into streams where it can hurt water quality.

Neither means of disposal is environmentally wise.

"This is huge," said Ross Penhallegon, agent for the OSU Extension Service in Lane County. "What do we do with a fairly large amount of fecal matter coming from our friends - or whatever we want to call them? And it boils down to no easy answer."

The plastic bag method makes Eugene's environmentally conscious dog owners uneasy. They want to recycle as much as possible and use the landfill as little as possible.

Morse Ranch Dog Park users recently asked Kevin Finney, Eugene parks maintenance manager, whether there wasn't some better alternative.

"They really wished they could get the biodegradable bags, but then we all realized that they're really not going to break down in the landfill anyway," Finney said. "Most of those `biodegradable' things, if you bury them in the absence of oxygen, they don't really do anything."

Many plastic bags rupture during hauling and compaction at the dump, allowing the waste to degrade, noted Sara Grimm, Lane County's waste reduction specialist Sarah Grimm.

But worrying about what kind of bag to use is irrelevant if the landfill is the wrong place for the waste to end up.

Bury the evidence?

Environmentalists have considered composting - a common practice with cow and chicken poop - but it's a hazardous practice with dogs because canine feces hosts parasites that can survive the heat generated in backyard compost piles.

Dog droppings may contain E. coli, salmonella, giardia and helminth ova, a cyst encrusted bug that's hard to kill.

Finney toyed with the idea of a separate system to compost the city's dog doo collections but realized it wasn't feasible.

The state Department of Environmental Quality wouldn't let the city keep mountains of decaying dog feces on the ground, Finney said. The city would have to build a composting facility, which is prohibitively expensive.

The city of Eugene recommends dog owners get rid of their own dog doo by digging foot-deep holes on their property, placing three or four inches of waste in the bottom, chopping and mixing the feces into the soil at the bottom of the hole and then refilling it. (See www.metrokc.gov/dnrp/swd/composting/petwaste.asp)

That's heavy work, said Chuck Gottfried, who supervises the city of Springfield's water resources program. "I have two dogs, and it would be a big, big project," he said.

Another strategy: Create a rough-and-ready backyard doggie septic tank. (See www.cityfarmer.org) That involves taking a plastic garbage can, drilling holes in it and cutting out the bottom, and then planting it below ground. Throw in some septic starter, and feed in the waste.

But please don't try that in Springfield, said Gottfried, who recently led a workshop on pet waste for the Oregon Association of Clean Water Agencies.

Unlike Eugene - which gets water from the McKenzie River - Springfield draws its water from aquifers under the city. Wells are located near the city center and along the Willamette and McKenzie rivers.

If a doggy septic system failed to work, fecal bacteria could leach into the acquifer, Gottfried said.

Just flush it

The best option is to pick up after your pet, tote the stuff home, and flush it down the toilet, Gottfried and many other environmental experts say. That way, the waste gets the same going-over as human waste.

"The waste treatment plant is designed to sterilize and clean and remove those waste materials," Gottfried said.

Penhallegon agrees: "In the sewer system, it's just more fecal matter."

The plant, which serves Eugene and Springfield, says it's fine with that option.

"If you can get dog waste into a toilet without the accompanying nonbiodegradable materials (plastic bags), that's all right with us," plant official Ron Morrow said.

The treatment plant produces methane out of the human fecal matter it processes. The gas powers engines that generate about half the power required to run the plant. Dog waste would increase the raw material.

The only thing standing in the way is the yuck factor for dog owners. "People pick it up in a baggie, and all they want to do is drop it into a garbage can," Finney said.

Those who bother to bag their dogs' waste, in fact, are heroes to the city parks crew because removal means crew members don't get splattered with feces when they're mowing. A little less than half of dog owners can't be bothered, according to some studies in parks management literature.

"People say that animals do this all the time outside, and that's the natural way," Gottfried said. But the concentration of dogs in urban areas is far beyond natural, he said.

Dog doo is a significant source of bacteria in city streams and ditches, according to studies in The Practice of Urban Watershed Protection.

Springfield has measured fecal bacteria in creeks and ditches at 72nd Street and 69th Street, Gottfried said. Wildlife may be partially to blame, but "pet waste is probably a contributor," he said.

The creeks gather and pour into the Willamette and McKenzie rivers, he said.

"It's kind of an unsavory thought that you're out there swimming and kayaking in water that's contaminated with pet waste," he said.

The problem is severe enough that the state requires cities with bacteria problems to deal with pet waste. The tiny mountain community of Westfir, near Oakridge, has until January 2008 to install two pet waste collection stations along the 1.7 miles of the North Fork of the Willamette River that runs through town.

Energy source

A change to pet poo practice nationally is on the horizon.

San Francisco has pledged by 2020 to divert all of its dog waste away from landfills. Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy is considering a similar goal for Eugene.

The San Francisco pledge spurred garbage processor Norcal Waste to propose feeding the city's dog doo into an anaerobic digester and using the resulting methane for power.

Nationally, more than a dozen dairy farms generate power out of cow droppings. Lochmead Farms dairy in Junction City is considering a system in conjunction with the Emerald People's Utility District.

As a city with 120,000 dogs, San Francisco has plenty of raw material, Norcal spokesman Robert Reed said. The company has a collection plan and a prototype digester, but wants the city to help finance the start-up.

One potential glitch: Dog owners could use biodegradable bags but a single errant plastic bag would plug the digester.

Still, the company wants to try, Reed said. "We're working through all these issues. We're in the very early, preliminary stage."