ITHACA — The City of Ithaca has been spending a lot of time lately talking about poop.

Dog poop, that is.

The Board of Public Works indicated more willingness to help with cleanup of dog waste at Ithaca's off-leash dog park at its Wednesday night meeting. Board members who had previously told the Tompkins County Dog Owners Group to deal with waste removal or composting themselves, pulled back from that strict line.

When dog owners started using the park, they deposited their dog's waste into dumpsters emptied by the state. But as dog waste began piling up, the state decided it didn't want responsibility for cleaning up a city park.

City officials then put in garbage cans for dog owners to use, but were also quickly overwhelmed by the sheer volume of waste.

“It was something like 90 pounds a day,” said Rick Ferrel, assistant superintendent of public works for streets and facilities.

The city pulled out the garbage cans and posted signs in the dog park informing owners that they would have to take their dog waste with them when they left the park.

Dog owners who use the park, represented most vocally by TCDOG, complained about the city's reversal, and questioned the fairness of enforcing a carry-out rule for the dog park when it's ignored in many city parks.

Margaret Hobbie, chairwoman of the Ithaca city parks commission, said city policy for waste removal at city parks is supposed to be strictly carry-in, carry-out.

“It's supposed to be carry-in, carry-out for all of them. It is supposed to be,” she said.

But Hobbie noted that the policy is regularly overlooked and that there are trash cans at several city parks, including Six Mile Creek and Cass Park.

Neither Ferrel nor Mayor Carolyn Peterson was certain what the trash removal policy in city parks is, but both were able to name city parks that do provide trash removal.

TCDOG then offered to give the city the money to install composting facilities in the park. The organization made preliminary calls to contractors and was quoted $3,000 as the price tag for installation and maintenance for one year.

The Board of Public Works heard the proposal at its July 11 meeting, but decided that it wasn't worth the city's trouble to undertake such a venture, and encouraged TCDOG to contract directly with a composting company.

“From the city's point of view, there is less trouble if somebody else sets up the contracting,” said City Attorney Dan Hoffman.

TCDOG members were not pleased.

At Wednesday's meeting, TCDOG member Leon Kochian read a statement by fellow member Alicia Plotkin that said in part, “It seems as though dog owners are being singled out for different treatment: skateboard park users or softball leagues don't have to put the NYSEG bills in their names, for example, and it is hard to see how dog waste collection is that different.”

Board member Ray Schlather argued at the July 11 Board of Public Works meeting for TCDOG to contract directly to do composting, but Wednesday night said he had reconsidered his position.

“We're still a public entity, and it seems to me that we should do our job as a public entity,” he said.

Board member Wade Wykstra said he worried about two things if the city agreed to take on composting for the dog park: misunderstanding and precedence.

“My instinct is to say, keep it simple,” Wykstra said. “If this contractor can take care of it and it doesn't matter who takes care of it, then let (TCDOG) do it.”

Hoffman remained concerned about “logistical burdens” that the city would incur from taking the project on, and Board member Ron Chapman reminded the group that the dog park is temporary, and will expire if not renewed in four months.

The Board of Public Works will vote on the issue at its next meeting, at 4:30 p.m. Aug. 1.

For now, the park remains carry-in, carry-out, with no city or state trash cans available. Board members who have visited the park recently all agreed that dog owners are cleaning up after their pets, and the park looks clean.

“It seemed people were unhappily complying,” Peterson said.