County Adopts New Storm Water Ordinance to Protect Local Creeks

Placer County, Ala., has begun to take new steps in order to keep storm water out of the area's storm drains, and thereby out of local creeks.

The new storm water quality ordinance should give the county more authority to enforce illegal discharges by residents and businesses.

Bob Costa, the public works manager overseeing the program for the county's unincorporated areas, told the Auburn Journal that the idea behind the ordinance is to provide written authority for enforcement.

Costa explained that many people are not aware that the water that goes down storm drains is channeled into a creek, as opposed to a sewer treatment plant.

The chief goal of the county storm water quality program is to protect the health of the county's rivers, streams, creeks and lakes by preventing the introduction of pollutants.

The Auburn Journal reports that the program emphasizes an education-based approach where residents and businesses are encouraged to manage activities and materials in ways that avoid the introduction of pollutants.

The new ordinance makes clear what isn’t allowed as well as what is allowed to go into storm drains.

The ordinance contains exemptions that allow discharges into storm drains for:

• Landscape irrigation and lawn watering.
• Diverted stream flows and irrigation water.
• Condensation from air conditioning.
• Individual residential car washing.
• Dechlorinated discharges from swimming pools.
• Firefighting flows.

In the past, the county's enforcement focused primarily on construction sites where grading work could allow sediment to be washed away and enter the storm-drain system.

Now that the ordinance is in place, the county plans to increase public education efforts and broaden its enforcement program to comply with state and federal laws that regulate storm water discharges.

Source: Auburn Journal