Video: Grade-schoolers protect local creek

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SEATTLE - You can call them the state's youngest environmental detectives.

Students at Kapka Cooperative Primary School were rewarded Wednesday for their work investigating the creek at Fauntleroy Park - a scenic stream with a serious problem.

Its fecal coliform content is out of compliance. In other words, Fauntleroy Creek is full of poop.

Ecology officials had known for years that dog poop was ending up in the stream, but their search for puppy piles on the trails often came up empty.

The student detectives dug deeper and found what the grownups missed.

"When they mapped out where they observed the dog poop, we noticed that much of the dog poop was off the trail," said Sinang Lee, Washington Department of Ecology.

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The students proved some grown-up visitors to Fauntleroy Park are not keeping their dogs on leashes.

The second graders proved some grown-up visitors to the park are not keeping their dogs on leashes. The hidden piles left behind are threats to the stream and anyone who comes in contact with it.

Representatives from the State Department of Ecology gave the students a statue of dog, complete with a pile of the suspected perpetrator of the creek's problem.

Ecology officials will use the evidence gathered by the students to develop new plans of protecting the stream and getting dog owners to keep them leashed.