The recently dismantled gas chamber at the Richmond County Animal Control center sits at the back of the shelter, with other equipment no longer in use. The city has stopped euthanizing cats and dogs in the chamber. JONATHAN ERNST/STAFF

City ends use of gas chamber at pound

Mayor issues order to animal control to use lethal injection for future euthanasia, effective immediately

Web posted September 23, 1998

By Sylvia Cooper
Staff Writer

The gas chamber at the Richmond County Animal Control shelter has been dismantled and won't be used to put any more unwanted animals to death, city officials said.

Animal control employees began using lethal injections to destroy animals this week, said Augusta Mayor Larry Sconyers.

Mr. Sconyers issued a memo to animal control Director Jim Larmer on Friday stating that, effective immediately, the use of carbon monoxide would be terminated.

``We're lethally injecting them now,'' Mr. Sconyers said Tuesday.

The mayor said he decided to shut down the gas chamber after recent articles in The Augusta Chronicle about 10,788 animals being killed in the center's carbon monoxide chamber last year.

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The stories, outlining the problem of thousands of unwanted animals and detailing the fate of most in the gas chamber, triggered dozens of citizen calls to the mayor's and City Administrator Randy Oliver's offices.

``After the story came out in the paper, I had a bunch of calls from people and then I called and talked to Mr. Larmer,'' Mr. Sconyers said.

``And then I decided the best thing to do -- especially about the complaints about the dogs not being totally killed and having to bring them back and do it again -- I said, `We're just going to do away with it.'''

In the past, some dogs revived at the landfill, forcing animal control officers to take them back for re-gassing.

``We're not going to wait any longer. So I issued an order to cease using the gas chamber immediately and to remove it from the premises and go to total lethal injection, and that's what we're doing. It was something that needed to be done.''

Animal activists have been circulating petitions to shut down the chamber and had planned to present them to commissioners at the Oct. 6 commission meeting.

In February, state Department of Agriculture inspector Virginia McLendon noted that she repeatedly had requested the chamber be used only for small dogs and cats or for wild animals.

``In my opinion, this chamber is way too small and is inhumane for use because of size,'' Ms. McLendon stated in the report.

Richmond County was the only facility still using a carbon monoxide chamber to put animals to death in a 21-county area covered by the current inspector Billy Carroll and one of only a few in the state.

Ms. McLendon also noted that she had discussed numerous problems with the shelter coordinator that he planned to discuss with city commissioners and that she would get the responses at the next inspection.

Augusta Commissioner Ulmer Bridges called Mr. Sconyers' decision a ``humanitarian gesture.''

``And I'm glad we're getting away from the gas chamber,'' Mr. Bridges said. ``This method will be less cruel to animals in putting them to sleep.''

But the best remedy to putting animals to sleep is for people to have those they don't intend to breed spayed, Mr. Bridges said.

``They should go ahead and spend those few dollars and have that done,'' he said. ``I think that would be the greatest deterrent to loose animals and more dogs and cats than we can provide for.''

The Richmond County shelter currently is overrun by thousands of neglected, mistreated, abandoned, sick or vicious animals that are picked up off the streets or dropped there by the public.

They come from throughout the Central Savannah River Area, especially from nearby counties that have no animal control facilities.

Last year Augusta destroyed more animals than any of the 20 counties around metro Atlanta, except Fulton County, most with much bigger populations.