Dog park’s trail put under the magnifying glass
New path paving may hurt pets
In troubled times, turn off CNN and go to the dog park.
Santa Fe has a particularly great one, run by the Santa Fe Animal Shelter and Humane Society, off N.M. 599 southwest of town, not far from the municipal golf course and city soccer fields. The views of the mountains are great from this little piece of northern New Mexico wide open space. There are even separate runs for untrained dogs or dogs that will never be trained.
The only negative about the location is that the 100-acre park seems to be set in a particular micro-climate zone, a kind of miniature high plains, where the winds that are often
constant in Santa Fe from early spring to early summer get amplified. The dogs don’t seem to mind, though.
Something new was recently added at the dog park — and, as we all know, “new” in Santa Fe is by default suspect and often problematic.
The shelter recently added a base course walking trail that goes around the perimeter of the park’s main section, using a $19,000 grant from PNM. The park’s only non-natural features, besides fencing, previously was a couple of shade shelters, a few benches and a water pump usable in the warmer months. Now, there’s more to debate at the park than whether this or that dog is too aggressive or otherwise upsetting the canine bliss.
The questions among human dog-park regulars, some more vociferous than others, include: Why was a sort-of paved trail needed where unsullied bare ground had sufficed; and, more specifically, why are there bits of glass in the material used to make the trail?
Complainants feel the park had a more natural feel before.
Ben Swan, the Animal Shelter’s public information officer, says the idea of the trail was to make it easier and nicer for walkers in wet weather and muddy conditions. And, although the trail surface isn’t appropriate for wheelchairs, a more consistent and flat surface should make things easier for people who have difficulty walking, as well as for people who want to jog or run around the park, Swan said. People who still want to walk on dirt can do that.
Swan said the majority, though not all, of dog park users who’ve commented to the staff of the Animal Shelter — which is adjacent to the dog park — are happy with the trail and like the idea of “having a place to walk that
will stay dry in the winter and in wet weather.”
Then there are the glass shards that have somehow been introduced into the dog park. They are something of a mystery.
Two tries at surfacing
The contractor hired to make the trail has made two runs at surfacing the path. After the first try, the Animal Shelter staff posted signs last month that said, “Caution! Foreign materials have been noted during construction of our dog park trail. We ask that you AVOID the trail until the contractor assures us of the trail’s safety and we are satisfied with the trail’s surface. It is our intention that the trail be safe for all users.”
Swan said the initial material was recycled base course that had things like wire and Styrofoam in it. The Animal Shelter declared that unacceptable, so most of it was removed and then replaced with a second surface. And a small portion of the new stuff consists of pieces of glass.
The small pieces are not rounded-off tumbled glass, which is often used in landscaping. A sampling of the shards found during a recent visit to the park didn’t have very sharp edges. But their points or edges might be a problem if a bare human foot (always a dumb idea at a dog park, for obvious reasons) or a dog paw struck them at just the wrong angle and with the right amount of force.
“The first dog that cuts its paw from a glass shard should have the shelter’s contractor pay for the vet bill and stitches,” opined one dogpark user.
The glass is “not really sharp stuff,” Swan said, “but we don’t want it there.” As of earlier this week, there was talk of additional work by the contractor, although not another resurfacing.
The new material came from the city-county Caja del Rio Landfill, according to the contractor. A company sells crushed aggregate that comes from blasting out rock for new space for dumping solid waste there.
Erica Encinias, half of the couple that runs the contracting company, said they don’t know where the glass came from, either. “We’re trying to work with them,” she said of the Animal Shelter staff. “We want to make people happy, as well as the shelter.” She said the rejected material used initially was “state approved.”
The Journal has offered the theory that the shards come from crushed glass at the landfill. Crushed glass is used as landfill liner to collect leachate at Caja del Rio, and comes from the bottles that Santa Fe residents and businesses put in their recycling bins. So far, no one seems to have checked out this possibility. Maybe a mix of crushed rock and glass that would be perfectly fine as a base course beneath surface pavement ended up on a dog park trail.
‘Enthusiastic’ about trail
Deborah Corbett, a walker at the park on Monday, said the trail is a great improvement. She said the park soil gets slick when wet and becomes unsafe, particularly for the elderly and people with mobility limitations. “When I first heard about it, I was enthusiastic about it, and I still am,” she said.
As for the glass shards, she said she sees one “every once in a while, and I pick it up and throw it over the fence.”
“My dog is my world,” Corbett said, but she isn’t worried about the glass bits. “My personal opinion is that a lot of people complain for the sake of complaining.”
Swan said early this week that the staff will be posting signs for a public meeting on what’s been going on at the dog park.
He said the Animal Shelter, a nonprofit that receives no public funding other than what it earns from contracts with the city and county to take in stray and abandoned pets, was “really trying to help the community” with the trail. Swan said the organization needs continued support for its number one business, saving animals.