From Edgewater to your backyard: Why Cleveland’s poop problem is bigger than it looks
When untreated waste shuts down Lake Erie beaches, it’s not just a sewer problem — it’s a backyard one too. Here’s how local clean-up efforts, from NEORSD to Brindle Scoopers, protect Cleveland’s water.
Over the summer, Edgewater Beach made headlines for all the wrong reasons. Heavy rains pushed untreated wastewater straight into Lake Erie, forcing multiple beach closures. The Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District (NEORSD) says a fix is finally on the horizon — a $20 million project called the Edgewater Beach Surge Tunnel, designed to divert excess runoff to the Westerly Wastewater Treatment Plant instead of letting it spill into the lake.
Watch the full Sound of Ideas segment below featuring NEORSD, Cleveland Metroparks, and Brindle Scoopers discussing the Edgewater overflow and what it means for our local environment.
It’s easy to think of that as an “infrastructure problem.” But what happens at the city scale mirrors what happens at home. When storm drains or yards collect animal waste, those same bacteria, parasites, and nutrients flow right into our local waterways. The difference is just scale.
That’s where Brindle Scoopers comes in.
We might not be laying concrete tunnels, but we’re tackling the same issue — one yard at a time.
“There’s a huge issue with parasites,” said Anna Rencz, founder of Brindle Scoopers, during her appearance on The Sound of Ideas. “Dogs are continuously re-contaminating themselves. The biggest offender? Not picking up the waste.”
Dog waste isn’t fertilizer.
Unlike livestock manure, it’s highly acidic, loaded with pathogens, and can contain roundworms, hookworms, whipworms, giardia, and more. Left on the ground, it doesn’t break down cleanly — it washes away, taking bacteria with it straight into our watershed.
Even NEORSD’s CEO Kyle Dreyfus-Wells drives the point home:
“Dog waste has ten times as much fecal coliform as cow manure.”
When you think about the millions of dogs in Northeast Ohio, it adds up fast.
At Brindle Scoopers, we see the results up close — the parasites that reinfect pets, the contaminated soil, the runny stool that alerts owners to a problem before their vet does. Sometimes our team even catches early signs of infestations and alerts clients so they can treat their dogs sooner.
We’re not just cleaning yards. We’re part of the same effort to keep Lake Erie and our communities safe.
That’s why our service doesn’t stop at pickup — we also provide sanitation and deodorization using EPA-approved solutions that neutralize bacteria and viruses left behind.
Because whether it’s an overflowing outfall or an uncollected pile in the grass, the story is the same: waste that isn’t managed ends up somewhere it shouldn’t.
The surge tunnel at Edgewater is a big step forward for Cleveland’s water. But the work at home matters just as much.
If you live in Cuyahoga, Lake, or Lorain County — your yard is part of the watershed.
Keeping it clean protects your dog, your family, and yes, your lake.
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