Why Storm Water Grates Carry An Important Warning
If you are walking along the street after a rainstorm, and you see storm water grates along the curb, you may want to take a closer look. Peering at them, you are likely to find that there is some writing on these grates. The grates often say something akin to "Do not dump waste here," or "Storm water only."
This brings to mind valuable questions why you cannot dump cooking grease, car oil, or other waste products in these drains. There are reasons why these drains are labeled as they are. These reasons will help you remember to leave storm drains alone, and find other ways to empty other kinds of waste elsewhere.
Storm Water Drains DO NOT Connect to City Sewers
Civil engineers figured out that if they did not allow storm drains to mix with city sewer drains, they would have far fewer sewer flooding problems. So, they created storm drains. These are an entirely separate set of drains that collect all storm water (and yes, even debris from the street), and channel it out into the nearest waterway. If you dump your car oil or cooking grease into these drains, you are essentially polluting the nearest river or lake, which is where the water in these drains goes.
There Are Steep Fines for Anyone Caught Emptying Other Kinds of Waste into Storm Water Drains
Because you are essentially polluting the environment when you dump other stuff into the storm drains, you are liable for the environmental damage you cause. As such, if you are caught, or if a neighbor sees you and reports you, you could be fined. The fines are pretty steep, too.
Repeated Dumpings of Oils, Fats, and Grease Block the Drains
A common problem that the city sewer system has is that there is a lot of fatty, greasy sludge building up in the sewers. Frequently flushing these sewers stops the accumulation of this sludge, which hardens into a blockage in the tunnels. Storm drains, on the other hand, are rarely, if ever, flushed. Since the city expects that storm water is the only thing flowing through, they do not flush them. Repeated dumping of oils, fats, and grease in the storm water drains creates the same problem that city sewers have, only nothing is being done to clear the blockages in the storm drains.
Eventually, the blockages created by dumping non-storm water wastes into the system causes the storm drains to back up. The water cannot flow through. It begins to flood the streets and make driving impossible.
For more information about your local storm water systems, contact companies like FABCO INDUSTRIES INC.
