The Coos County Sheriff’s Office spent $77,000 on an animal incinerator that officials say could also be used to dispose of evidence no longer needed by law enforcement.
The purchase comes as Coos County continues to grapple with budget problems that have already led to cuts in the sheriff’s office.
The county currently pays to transport animal remains to a landfill for disposal, including animals from veterinary offices.
Supervising Animal Control Officer Jason Patterson says those costs add up.
“We take the deceased animals, and we dispose of them,” he said. “That costs money.”
Law enforcement was facing a similar problem with evidence that no longer needed to be retained. The county previously took the evidence to a facility in Brooks, Oregon, near Salem. When it shut down last year, evidence had to be transported to a site farther away in Washington.
“It costs to ship stuff up,” Patterson said. “You have to have two people generally go to escort evidence up. It’s a full-day trip for us.”
Patterson also hopes to use the incinerator to dispose of evidence no longer needed.
“We had a backlog of evidence of 40 years that we needed to go through,” Patterson said.
Patterson says using the incinerator for evidence will require additional approval from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.
The incinerator has prompted concerns online, but Patterson said those worries are unfounded.
“There’s a lot of comments right now on Facebook about how we’re just going to euthanize everything. This is not something we installed because we’re euthanizing everything," he said. "It’s something that is hopefully going to be an asset and save the county money."
Patterson said the shelter’s euthanasia rate remains below 10%, qualifying it as a no-kill shelter.
