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| Susquehanna, the dog training to sniff out sewage in the Susquehanna River, has some fun playing fetch in the water recently at the Susquehanna State Park in Williamsport. Cara Morningstar photo |
Pat Crossley reports for the (Williamsport) Sun-Gazette:
Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper Carol Parenzan uses many resources to aid her in patrolling the Susquehanna River watershed, but only one has a furry body and a nose that is being trained to sniff out the presence of raw sewage in the water.
Little Susquehanna, or “Sussey” as Parenzan affectionately calls him, is 3 years old this month. He is a Nova Scotia duck tolling retriever, an unusual breed she chose for two reasons.
“There are just a handful of dogs trained to do sewage, and he’s probably the only Nova Scotia duck toller right now being trained to do that,” Parenzan said.
One reason she chose the breed is that they are water dogs. In fact, Sussey has webbed feet.
“He swims like a little fish out there. He loves water,” Parenzan said.
She also selected him because he’s an unusual breed.
“When people see him, they say, ‘Wow what is that?’ Then I go through the story,” she said.
Parenzan said it opens up a conversation and she can explain why he has that particular name and the work he does for her and the environment.
“He was selected purposely to be a story,” she said.
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Duck tollers are hunting dogs, she noted, so his sense of smell is intense. Although he is her pet, Sussey also is the official conservation canine for the Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper.
“Dogs are trained to respond to a certain scent, whether it’s drugs or bed bugs, diabetes or cancer. His scent that he’s being trained to respond to is raw sewage. I actually go to the sewage treatment plant once a week and get it. Most people want to get rid of it there; I go get it and bring it home,”Parenzan said, laughing.
Although residents may like to think area waterways are free of sewage, Parenzan
cautioned that may not be the case, because there still are combined sewer overflow systems in use.
Right now, a move is underway to separate sewage and stormwater systems. In the past they have been combined, Parenzan said.
When a combined flow goes toward the sewage treatment plant, if it is under a certain level, it goes to the sewage treatment plant to get treated whether it is wastewater or stormwater. In this system, as it’s going underground, there’s a weir and as the water is coming down it comes up to the weir and if it’s below the top of the weir it goes to the treatment plant.
A problem arises when there is a storm event and the water coming into the system spills over the weir. Then wastewater and stormwater will both go into the river.
“But, there is also the issue of illegal connections, people who don’t want to pay for wastewater treatment who will illegally redirect their wastewater into the stormwater system” through catch basins, or storm drains, she said.
“(Sussey will) be able to detect that. He’ll be able to go by those storm drains and if there’s a scent of sewage, he’ll alert me,” Parenzan said. “We’ll be able to pop manholes that should just be stormwater going through and if there’s sewage in there, we’ll be able to detect that as well.”
Once the sewage reaches the river, Sussey still will be able to sniff it out, even though the river covers a large area.
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