Dog Waste Removal in Gig Harbor

A Gig Harbor address is usually not in Gig Harbor. Pierce County's community plan treats the peninsula and Fox Island as one area of about 58 square miles, and of the 51,912 people it counted there in 2020, 11,163 were inside the city limits. Everyone else is spread from the Narrows Bridge to the Purdy Bridge on ground the county still zones rural. Dog waste removal in Gig Harbor is a driving job before it is a scooping job.

The sewer map is the fastest way to see why that matters. City sewer reaches about 6.1 square miles of the plan area, and everything past it is on a septic drainfield. The county plan is direct about the consequence: the peninsula waters with serious pollution problems are Burley Lagoon, Minter Bay, and Purdy Creek, the trouble is elevated fecal coliform, and the sources it names are animal manure and failed septic systems.

Burley Lagoon sits at Purdy, at the top of the peninsula. The state classifies it as a commercial shellfish growing area, Conditionally Approved, Restricted, and closes the conditional portion whenever an inch of rain falls in twenty-four hours. The city spells out the mechanism on its own stormwater page: runoff reaches local streams and Puget Sound without being cleaned, and pet waste can lead to beach closures or affect shellfish harvest. Crescent Valley, the Wollochet and Artondale Creek drainages, and the Rosedale valley carry a Rural Sensitive Resource designation written for the same reason.

None of that stops anyone walking a dog. Tubby's Trail Dog Park on 14th Avenue NW is 8.5 acres with separate areas for small and large dogs, and PenMet says plainly that it serves as a catchment area for excess water and can get muddy in the rainy season. Rotary Bark Park on Bujacich Road NW holds a 15-acre off-leash area with over a mile of fenced trail inside a 97-acre natural area. The Cushman Trail runs about 6.2 paved miles beneath the Cushman power transmission lines, from 14th Avenue near the Tacoma Narrows to the north end of town, dogs on leash.

Which leaves the yard, and yards here are not one thing. High-bank bluff lots at Point Fosdick. Five to ten acre parcels in Ray Nash Valley. Harbor Hill and Canterwood on the north side. Crescent Valley, where the plan puts residential density at the lowest on the peninsula. And the bridge over Hale Passage to Fox Island, which is a trip of its own. We build the week around that spread and scoop it on the schedule you pick.