Dog Poop Scooping in El Paso, Texas

El Paso is the largest city GP Scoops serves and, with Horizon City, one of its two main areas. It is a big city spread around the Franklin Mountains, with neighborhoods that feel very different from each other: older homes with walled yards in Central, hillside lots on the West Side, and newer subdivisions with rock landscaping on the far east side. Dog owners in every part of town share the same problem in the summer, which is heat. When afternoons run hot from late spring into September, waste left in the yard smells fast, and nobody wants to be out scooping in it.

El Paso grew up around a crossing of the Rio Grande, the pass between the Franklin Mountains and the mountains to the south in what is now Ciudad Juárez. That desert setting still shapes daily life: little rain for most of the year, a monsoon season in late summer that brings short, heavy storms, and spring winds that carry dust across the city. When a storm hits, rain runs off yards and streets into arroyos, channels and storm drains.

El Paso Water explains that the city's storm drains are separate from its sewers. Water from a sink or toilet is treated and reused, for irrigation, industry, the Rio Bosque wetlands and Mission Valley farms. Runoff is not treated or reused on its way to the Rio Grande or a retention basin, and much of the system it travels through is open canals and street gutters, so the gutter in front of a house is part of it.

Some of the ponds that hold runoff have a second life. El Paso Water now builds many detention ponds wide and shallow, with grass and trees, so they work as parks between storms and, during one, slow the water, catch debris and let it soak into the aquifer. El Paso Water counts 363 miles of storm drain pipe and more than 8,000 drop inlets in the system.

Most El Paso yards mix several surfaces. Rock and gravel landscaping is everywhere because it holds up without much water. Many families have added artificial turf for the dogs and kids. Older homes may have dirt runs along the side of the house and concrete patios that soak up heat. Each surface holds waste and odor differently, which is why the quote form asks about your dogs and why the follow-up call asks about your yard. Closer to the river, in parts of the Upper and Lower Valley, some homes still have grass lawns under shade trees. If your dogs have worn a path along the back wall or use one corner of the rock bed, that is useful to mention.

Storm season is another reason to stay ahead of the yard. The EPA notes that pet waste carried by runoff adds bacteria and nutrients to the water it reaches. El Paso Water counts compacted soil alongside roofs and pavement as ground that sheds rain instead of soaking it up, and a dirt run packed hard by daily paws can behave the same way, sending whatever is on it along with the water. If you walk your dog along an arroyo or open-space trail, remember that El Paso Water treats natural arroyos as part of the storm system, and some are protected from development for that reason, so waste left on those trails sits in the path storm water takes.

The city also runs fenced dog parks with dog waste stations across town, several with separate areas for small and large dogs, among them Westside Community Park on High Ridge Drive, Tom Lea Lower Park on East Schuster Avenue, Joey Barraza and Vino Memorial Park on McCombs Street and Tierra Buena Dog Park on Pebble Hills Boulevard, plus a seasonal dog water park at Pavo Real.

El Paso's animal code is specific about waste. It lists keeping an animal so that feces pile up into foul odors that bother the neighbors as a public nuisance, along with a pet that habitually leaves waste on someone else's property. Off your own lot, waste has to be picked up immediately, on city property and in a neighbor's yard alike. The same code requires every dog 4 months and older to be registered with the city, vaccinated against rabies and microchipped, and it keeps animals off public playgrounds, school grounds and athletic fields unless whoever owns them gives written permission.