With the urbanization of communities across the United States, more land is becoming impermeable, not allowing water to absorb into the earth's surface.  Instead, this water runs off of our streets, rooftops, and driveways, ultimately entering our storm drains.  This high volume of water runoff can cause flooding, erosion, and the destruction of not only private property but also native habitats. 

It is important for us to remember that rain, sprinklers, and other sources of water that create runoff also pick up and deliver contaminants to our local creeks.  The potential pollutants carried by stormwater can have adverse effects on our creeks, lakes, and oceans making them unhealthy for recreation, wildlife, and drinking.  Keeping our properties and our public streets clean can help minimize the opportunity to introduce these contaminants into our water sources.

 

Storm drains are SEPARATE from the sewer system.

The SANITARY SEWER takes all the water from inside homes and businesses (such as sinks, bathtubs, washing machines, and toilets) and sends it to a water treatment facility where the water is cleaned before being released to the ocean.

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The STORM DRAIN system takes all the water from outside homes and businesses (such as rain and overwatering of lawns) and sends it untreated to our local creeks, rivers, bays, and eventually the ocean.

The storm drain system is designed as a flood control system. It allows water from heavy rainstorms to flow quickly to our waterways to avoid flooding our streets, homes, and businesses. However, both stormwater and non-stormwater runoff from homes and businesses can pick up pollutants as large as shopping carts or as microscopic as bacteria. These pollutants are flushed into our waterways, impacting the environment and recreation at our beaches.

Because runoff that gets into our storm drain system is untreated, it is extremely important we prevent pollutants from entering the storm drains and, ultimately, our waterways.