Massachusetts

Bags of Dog Poop Block Sewer Drains

When water flows on Dedham Street in Canton, Massachusetts, it ends up in the catch basins. Earlier this year, though, they were catching bags of dog poop.

"You're doing a good thing, picking up the dog poop from the street," Canton Public Works Superintendent Michael Trotta said. "You put it in a plastic bag, that's fine. Don't dump it down catch basin."

Trotta says hundreds of dog waste bags were blocking the sewage system.

"You could call it 'Poopgate,' if you wanted to," Trotta said.

It created quite the mess, cost thousands in repairs and hurt the environment.

"Drains to a pond where people are fishing and swimming and boating," Trotta said. "It's untreated waste that gets into the water."

The sewer problem is long gone, but Trotta wants folks to know they're getting rid of their dogs' waste the wrong way.

"It happens in a lot of towns, and it's avoidable," he said.

The superintendent has a simple fix for those folks that have to walk their dogs: just throw away your poop bags instead of putting them down the drain.

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