Dogs Employed To Help Track Source of Navesink Pollution

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Story and Photos by Joseph Sapia
The two dogs, working separately, stopped at the open manhole of a sanitary sewer on Fair Haven’s Linden Drive.
Remi, a 3-year old female black Labrador mix, sat down. Sable, a 10-year old male German shepherd mix, barked.
“That’s how quick it is; it only takes a few seconds,” said Scott Reynolds.
Reynolds and his wife Karen run Environmental Canine Services (ECS) of Otisfield, Maine. Last month, at the invitation of Clean Ocean Action (COA) environmental group, as part of the Rally for the Navesink effort, their dogs demonstrated how they detect the presence of human waste.

Rally for the Navesink, which began in late June, is a joint effort by the public, government and environmental groups to restore the health of the Navesink River.
“It’s a question of stewardship,” said Fair Haven Mayor Benjamin Lucarelli. “I think part of the duty of stewardship is we don’t let things rest.”
Rally for the Navesink held its third meeting Wednesday, Sept. 21, during the week ECS was in town using the dogs in various spots of the 95-square-mile river watershed.
“We want to focus on a community response,” said Cindy Zipf, COA’s executive director. “A no-blame-game, fix-it approach.”
Over the last 10 years, the Navesink River has deteriorated with high fecal bacteria counts and depleted oxygen levels. Pollution threats, according to those involved, include human, domestic animal, farm animal and wildlife waste; fertilizers and pesticides; and petroleum products in the watershed. Human waste could come from improperly working septic systems, aging public sewers or broken septic or sewer pipes.

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Cindy Zipf of Clean Ocean Action, left to right, Fair Haven Mayor Benjamin Lucarelli and Brian Rice of the Navesink River Municipalities Committee stand at McCarter Pond in Fair Haven as they discuss work to clean the Navesink River watershed.

Advocates for the river must figure out the exact sources of the problems. And that is where the public’s eyes, scientific testing, and the ECS dogs come in.
Whereas scientific testing could take at least a day or so to get results, the ECS dogs’ work is immediate. Also, the dogs can pick out human waste, whereas the scientific testing simply breaks down the bacteria as fecal, which could come from humans or animals.
But scientific testing, in addition to the dogs, is important because it gives answers to the amount of fecal bacteria in the water, rather than simply its presence, said Zachary Lees, COA’s ocean and coastal policy staff lawyer. Scientific testing is being conducted by such groups as COA, Rutgers University and the state Department of Environmental Protection.
“It’s important to do both” kinds of testing said Bob Schuster, director of the DEP Bureau of Marine Water Quality Monitoring.
When a problem is found, the idea is to relay the information to the authorities and make sure the problem does not happen again, said Brian Rice, chairman of the Navesink River Municipalities Committee, a combination of municipal government and citizen representatives from Red Bank, Fair Haven, Rumson, Middletown, Colts Neck and Tinton Falls.
As part of the ECS demonstration, the dogs sniffed around Fair Haven’s McCarter Pond. But nothing was found.
“I think just as important as finding something is not finding something,” Scott Reynolds said.
“The dogs add a lot of value by eliminating large areas,” said Lees, referring to waters not polluted with human waste. “It’s just another tool in the toolbox.”
Zipf and Karen Reynolds declined to comment on how much ECS is being paid.
At the Rally for the Navesink meeting, Tim Doutt, representing the DEP Bureau of NonPoint Pollution Control, explained the river is impacted not only where its waters actually flow, but throughout the watershed.
“If you spill something in Holmdel, it’s going to get into the Navesink (River),” Doutt said.
Items going down storm drains, according to Doutt’s presentation, include litter, pet waste, fertilizer, yard waste and hazardous chemicals.
“Some people literally change their oil over storm drain inlets,” Doutt said.
A liter of motor oil can produce a 2-acre oil slick, according to the presentation by Gianna Fischer, COA’s ocean advocate.
In Fair Haven, for example, ordinances are being implemented to control storm water drainage, Lucarelli said.
John Quinn, past commodore of the Shrewsbury Sailing and Yacht Club, and his wife, Vivian, were among about 50 who attended the Rally for the Navesink meeting.
“Obviously, (as) a sailing club, the quality of the river is critical importance to us,” John said. “The two rivers” – the Navesink and the Shrewsbury – “are closely related. They change waters at every tide (and) we’re interested in helping.”
As population grows, “we have to be cleaner than we’ve ever been” to maintain the environment, John said.
“The rising tide lifts all boats and, hopefully, it is clean water,” Zipf said. “I really think we’re going to get that river clean and keep it clean.”