Teen's dog-waste stations could save Pima County money

A high school student’s Eagle Scout project could save Pima County tens of thousands of dollars.

Tanner Harline, 15, built 40 dog waste stations using PVC pipes that will be installed in the county’s dog parks.

The idea is for park users to stuff the pipes with reusable grocery bags instead of the pet-waste bags that the county buys, which are about 21 cents apiece and $105 for a box of 500.

“It’s good for the Earth and it saves money for Pima County,” the Mountain View High School freshman said.

In the past three years, the county spent nearly $40,000 for pet-waste bags, said George Kuck, operations maintenance manager for Pima County.

Having people donate their grocery bags would allow the county to eventually phase those out.

The existing bag dispensers are also pricey, he said. They cost about $140 apiece. In contrast, Harline’s PVC pipe stations cost $30 each.

“It’s definitely savings to the taxpayers if we people would start to use these,” Kuck said.

Four Salpointe Catholic High School seniors caught wind of Harline’s project and wanted to help out.

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They gathered at Brandi Fenton Memorial Park on Friday morning to install some of the dog-waste stations at the Austin Fitzgerald Memorial Dog Park and other places along the Loop.

Jacob Cole, 17, said he and his friends were looking for ways to reach out to the community for a senior project. His mother, who works for the county, told him about Harline’s dog-waste stations.

“It was perfect for our senior project,” Cole said.

One of the students, Evan Nye, 17, called Fry’s groceries to get 2,000 grocery bags donated. But those bags are just to get started, he said. Eventually, all the stations would have bags donated by park-goers.

Harline, who built the new dog-waste stations, said he worked with his father, a mechanical engineer at Raytheon, for the project.

The project was successful because of the help he got from his father, friends, people from his church and school, and his fellow scouts. Thirty-eight people showed up to help .

“I had leaders at every section, so that helped,” he said.

His father, Shawn Harline, said he was proud of his son’s initiative.

“He’s done a great job in working with the county and working with friends and individuals and Scout leaders to kind of come together as a group,” he said.