Stormwater Pollution Prevention – Page 7

While dogs may be some people’s best friends, their poop doesn’t always make the cut! Did you know, pet waste is the largest contributor of bacteria to water pollution, second to sewer overflows? Whether you take the time to bend down and pick up their waste really does have an impact on the environment.

Why is pet waste so damaging to our environment and waterways?

Pet waste contains harmful bacteria that can contaminate our surroundings and infect humans. A study done by the American Chemical Society found antibiotic-resistant forms of E. Coli, among many other types of bacteria, in dog waste. When dog owners fail to pick up their furry friend’s waste, all of these bacteria can be washed away untreated into stormwater drains and local waterways by rain, contaminating water that ultimately flows into the Ocean. Once in the Ocean, these bacteria can harm both the environment and human health.

What are common reasons for people leaving pet waste behind?

While getting dog waste into the garbage seems like an easy task, there are some barriers that prevent people from doing so:

Lack of waste bags: One of the most common reasons why people don’t pick up their dog’s waste is that they forget to bring a bag! While some parks and public spaces have doggy bag stations, a lot of areas don’t have this luxury. Luckily, there are doggy bag canisters available for purchase that you can clip on to leashes or collars for easy and convenient access.
Lack of trash cans: Some areas don’t have enough trash cans and make it hard for people to find somewhere to toss their bag. While it can be difficult to carry the bags with you for the whole walk, try your best to dispose of it properly once you’ve located a trash can.
Location: While dog waste is “natural”, it rarely ends up decomposing on hiking trails or parks like one would expect. Rain will often wash the waste into nearby storm drains or streams. It’s important to pick up dog waste from the ground and toss it in the trash, no matter the location!
General awareness: Some people don’t throw dog waste in the trash simply because they don’t know that they should! Often, people assume that dog waste will just decompose in the dirt, but that’s not the case.

How are cities getting involved in curbing water pollution from pet waste?

Pet waste has created some trouble for watersheds on the Midcoast, so the County is taking action and implementing a pet waste campaign to spread awareness about this issue and prevent more bacteria from entering their waterways. Breann Liebermann from the Office of Sustainability explained that pet waste is “a definite source of bacteria in that watershed,” which is why they’re specifically targeting pet waste in their environmental efforts. The two-year campaign will include pet waste cleanups, articles in local newspapers, outreach to K-12 students at local schools, an online pledge (found under County Initiatives), and much more!

Looking for some dog waste products? Come to an event we attend and receive doggy waste bags for free!

Amazon has great prices on canisters and bags:

With the cold, rainy weather upon us in the Bay Area, we’ll be bringing our next challenge indoors! This winter, we challenge you to reduce your pollution footprint from within your home.

There are many unsuspecting sources of hazardous chemicals in our homes that can end up in creeks and ultimately the Ocean and Bay. Common household items like bathroom and kitchen cleaners, batteries, and car wash items all contribute to the buildup of chemicals and toxins in the Ocean. These hazards create problems that put the aquatic environment and human health at risk. Luckily, there are eco-friendly alternatives and proper disposal methods you can use to reduce the amount of chemicals flowing to the Bay.

This season The Flows To Bay Challenge will be providing coupons for eco-friendly products from Grab Green and Pure Living, education about removing and replacing toxic substances from your homes, weekly events and a Facebook photo contest, where we will show the biggest messes we have cleaned using eco-friendly products!

How exactly do chemicals flow to the Bay? When chemicals from soaps and cleaners are washed down the drain, the water goes straight to a water treatment plant where most chemicals are filtered out. Many harsh chemicals, however, are not treated properly and remain in their hazardous states when water is released back to waterways. Hazardous household items like batteries, mercury thermometers and thermostats, paint and vehicle fluids can also contaminate waterways when they are dumped in the trash instead of being recycled.

What can you do to help fix this problem? Start with your own home! Making changes in your own home and lifestyle is the key to preventing water pollution. Swapping out your old cleaners for eco-friendly alternatives and following household hazardous waste disposal procedures will decrease the levels of chemicals entering our local waters. Here are some troublesome household items that may be lurking in your cupboards and storage areas at home:

Household cleaners and soaps: Household cleaners can be problematic because of all the chemicals these cleaners contain to cut grease and kill bacteria and germs. While they do a great job at disinfecting your floors, toilets, and surfaces, they contain corrosive and harsh chemicals that are harmful to human and environmental health. Surprisingly, hand and dish soaps can also be quite harmful to the environment. Many brands of hand soap contain the chemical triclosan, which can go untreated through wastewater treatment plants, and discharged into the ocean.
Here are some companies with cleaning and soap alternatives that are better suited for your home and the environment

Batteries: Batteries are essential for our gadgets and daily technology. However, they contain many harmful elements like cadmium, lead, and mercury, which can leach into soils and groundwater if thrown away. Luckily, many local businesses (Best Buy, Home Depot, Staples, Lowes, etc.) have take-back programs to properly dispose batteries at no cost! Alternatively, you can buy rechargeable batteries that can save money and reduce your impact in the long-run.

Old paint and motor oil: Paint and motor oil lurk in most people’s garages and often make their way to the drain or trash. Both paint and oil are classified as a hazardous waste, and need to be taken to a household hazardous waste center to be properly disposed. Just one quart of oil can contaminate one million gallons of water, so every drop counts!

These suggestions are just a start on how you can take action and get involved with fighting water pollution. From January to March, join the Flows To Bay Challenge, where we will be providing you with opportunities to revamp your homes like rebates for eco-friendly cleaning supplies and fun events where you’ll to learn how to green your home. Come join us in making your homes safer and kinder to our beloved bay!

Each year, over one million gallons of trash and three million gallons of oil enter the Bay, along with pet waste containing parasites and bacteria, mercury from improperly disposed household items like thermometers and light bulbs, and pesticides and fertilizers from lawn and garden care, all of which can harm and contaminate marine life and make the water dangerous for recreational use. All of these pollutants start with and can be curbed by residents like you! But it’s tough to know where to get started and that is why we are excited to introduce the Flows To Bay Challenge.

This year we are challenging YOU to make small changes in your lifestyle that will have a big impact on your pollution footprint. Your actions have a direct impact on the pollution that flows directly to our Bay and oceans, which means your impact can be positive, if you choose!

With the Flows to Bay Challenge we will provide you with all of the steps and tools you need to get started! We will start by focusing on a theme for each season:

Fall: Rainwater as a Resource
Winter: Inside the Home
Spring: In the Garden and Community

At the start of each season we will send out our newsletter (sign up here) which will provide you with articles on our season’s theme and a checklist of our season’s challenges. We will also provide you with a calendar of workshops and events, so you can learn how to implement these changes in and around your home and connect with neighbors who also want to help save the Bay and ocean. Each season we will have local partners that are joining the Challenge, helping to run our workshops and provide rebates to help ease or eliminate the cost for the tools and supplies you’ll need. And of course we are going to be tracking our progress and your involvement on our website and social media with contests, prizes, and more!

Go to the Flows To Bay Challenge to access:

Our Challenge Checklist
Events calendar
Rebates
Video tutorials
Environmental footprint calculator
Learn more about our partners

Our first season will help you learn how to use rainwater as a resource, by capturing it and repurposing it, instead of letting it collect pollutants as it makes its way to storm drains and waterways. We will teach you how to install rain barrels and rain gardens to conserve tap water and utilize rainwater. Join the Flows To Bay Challenge and help us reduce pollution and conserve our natural resources!

October 7th was Save The Bay’s annual Bay Day, an event aimed towards bringing awareness to the health of our most treasured natural resource, the Bay! Bay Day hosts educational and recreational activities that will ignite your love for the Bay and motivates Bay Area residents to protect our local waters. With over 68 event locations throughout the Bay, including coastal restoration projects, trash cleanups and trail hiking, Save The Bay ensured plenty of local fun to all Bay Area residents. had the honor of attending the Bay Day homebase at Redwood City’s PortFest.

The sheer number of Bay Dayers congregating around the live band and festive tables sharing messages of a commitment to a clean and vibrant Bay is testament to the fact that clean water and healthy ecosystems are a priority for many of us, and that local residents are ready to make a positive difference. It was inspiring just to see how easily people were engaged in learning about “stormwater pollution,” which typically isn’t the winning conversation at the party. But it’s clear that people do care and want to know what they can do to help reduce their own impact. To join the movement, our team shared the new Flows To Bay Challenge — a great way for residents to take action here in San Mateo through fun stewardship and sustainable-living events and all the resources you need to get started.

The reality of how each of us has a direct link to the health of the Bay, however, is not always clear. One family we spoke with, a young couple with a toddler, did not know that our trash, pesticides, etc. flow directly into the Bay without first being treated. This is a very common misconception that stormwater is treated before it enters the ocean. Any trash, pet waste, oil or other pollutants on sidewalks or streets eventually make its way directly to the ocean with no treatment. Albeit surprised, this young family quickly made notes about how to improve their home and their daily routines to lessen their impact. Like most of us, they want their daughter to grow up aware of and engaged in the issue, perhaps more than they themselves had been due to busy schedules. The main thought that seemed to linger as they moseyed along was that there are small things that all of us can do, like not over-filling waste bins, or capturing stormwater from your roof to water your garden.

We also spoke with a group of teenagers who were involved in a local sailing club, This eager group of young conservationists had seen first hand the litter and pollutants that can end up the Bay. They came to Bay Day mostly to have fun, but also to learn about what they could do to prevent the all too familiar site of litter and pollution on the Bay. We talked to them about local cleanup events and ways they can prevent litter from appearing in the first place (to learn about local cleanup events, visit our events calendar here, halfway down the page). This is what motivated people the most, the realization that they could take action, in a way that isn’t going to be disruptive to their lives.

Aside from the educational moments and inspiring conversations about real people making real change, there were also free boat rides, delicious crab cakes and even a jet pack demonstration! It was the ideal balance of fun and education. So if you didn’t make it this year, be sure to come out for the next Bay Day and help save the Bay, every day!

Results are in from the first San Mateo Countywide FlowsToBay High School Green Infrastructure Contest. This contest was open to high school students and probed them to learn about stormwater pollution and green infrastructure solutions through creating a green infrastructure proposal for their high school campus, which addressed a specific environmental or water quality issue that affects their school community.

The winning proposal was submitted by four students in Ms. Stephanie Owens’ Biology and Environmental Science class at Menlo-Atherton High School. Students Alondra, Danny, Kate and Kevin’s proposal offered a solution to the excessive flooding in the parking lot that makes student pick-up treacherous during the rainy season. Their design focused on replacing the impervious and slick asphalt throughout the parking lot with permeable pavement, which would allow stormwater to infiltrate into the underlying soils, promoting pollutant treatment and groundwater recharge as well as preventing unnecessary slippage and flooding that has inconvenienced the students. This project demonstrates a primary goal of green infrastructure – to reduce the amount of impervious surfaces in our landscape and to allow more rainwater to soak back into the ground rather than flush pollutants from streets into local waterways as it channels through gutters and pipes. The students also included a plan to place posters around the campus and near the affected areas to educate their classmates about permeable pavement, its purpose, and long term benefits. The second place winners were from Carlmont High School in Belmont with teacher Ms. Veronica Heintz.

As the environmental challenges we face continue to increase in scope and severity, it will be up to our younger generation of students and scientists to devise innovative solutions to tackle these problems that affect the health and well-being of us all. Through thinking globally about these interconnected environmental challenges and smarter ways to address them, we can act locally to enact change in our schools, homes, and communities.

In the early 1900s, Joyce Kilmer wrote in a now famous poem about trees, “Poems are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree.” California faces a bit of a tree crisis now as more than 100 million trees in its forests have died in recent years. What’s the cause of this massive tree mortality? Scientists from the U.S. Forest Service say it’s likely from back-to-back years of severe drought. Now with all the rain after this long period of drought, some trees are at risk to toppling over, including the ancient Pioneer Cabin Tree, in Calaveras Big Trees State Park.

Trees are very important to our environment. Aside from providing oxygen we all need to breathe, and storing massive amounts of carbon in roots, branches and leaves, trees also help mitigate flooding, purify water and stabilize soils. You may not think “stormwater management” when you see a tree, but in fact trees are some of our best tools for reducing the impacts of heavy rain events and limiting water pollution in our streets and waterways.

When rain falls on impervious surfaces, like buildings, roads and parking lots, it becomes stormwater runoff, which can be a serious water pollution problem when it mixes with whatever is on those surfaces and flows directly into nearby streams, the Bay or Ocean. All kinds of harmful pollutants can end up downstream:

Oil, grease and automotive coolants
Soaps from car washing
Garden and lawn fertilizers and pesticides
Bacteria from pet waste
Chemicals from accidental spills or leaky storage containers

When rainwater falls on trees instead of impervious surfaces, it slows down, trickles off leaves and branches and soaks into soils and roots. In addition to reducing flooding by capturing rainwater and slowing down the rate of stormwater, trees and their roots can also clean-up polluted runoff before it gets into our local waters.

Depending on the size and species of a tree, as much as 100 gallons of water can be captured. Experts say this can mean reducing stormwater runoff by two to seven percent1. Additionally, urban areas designed with natural landscapes and trees that filter water can cut back on costly capital expenditures that might otherwise be needed to expand the existing infrastructure to manage stormwater.

Through drought and floods, Californians have come to understand how important water is for our state. It is time we acknowledge the role trees and soil play in balancing our environment and water supply.

1 E. Gregory McPherson, James R. Simpson, Paula J. Peper, Aaron M.N. Crowell, and Qingfu Xiao, Northern California Coast Community Tree Guide: Benefits, Costs, and Strategic Planting (April 2010): 28. Accessed March 15, 2017.

The Ocean covers 97 percent of the Earth. That’s 321,003,271 cubic miles according to NOAA. Thus, in celebrating Earth Day, it makes sense to acknowledge not only land, but the sea as well.

Here are three ways to show your love for our oceans, as we strive to keep them pollution-free.

Use less plastic

Plastic is the biggest polluter of the world’s oceans. In fact, experts calculate that 275 million metric tons of plastic waste is floating out there. In the central North Pacific Ocean, there is an area of trash nicknamed the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Living up to its name, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is as wide as the state of Texas. This patch is not the only plastic trash vortex in the ocean; it is only the largest. In fact, there are five in total across the globe.

Unlike other pollutants, the problem with plastic is that it is non-biodegradable and could continue to float around up to 1,000 years longer than other forms of garbage.

So, skip the straw when you have a beverage. Recycle plastic items and opt for more compostable containers whenever possible.

Pitch in and clean up

Once the trash is out there, every little bit of litter can potentially harm marine life and damage coastal habitats. A number of groups work to clean the beaches up and down the California coast. Find a local cleanup event, bring friends and family to your favorite stretch of sand and commit to cleaning it up. Find a beach cleanup through the city of San Mateo or connect with the local chapter of the Surfrider Foundation.

Eat safe and sustainable seafood

One-third of fish populations around the globe are being depleted due to loss of habitat, growing demand for seafood and unsustainable fishing practices. There are ways to eat healthy and help the environment by reducing consumer demand for overexploited species. Search for sustainable seafood options and learn more from Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch.

When people take the time to understand the vital role oceans play in our lives, taking small steps to save them become urgently important. These eco-friendly efforts can have a big impact on the Ocean and the planet as a whole, making every day Earth Day.

Spring is on the way. As you reach for that dusty bin of cleaning supplies to spruce up your home, consider these affordable, eco-friendly and effective DIY cleaning alternatives. Instead of reaching for a potentially toxic product, there are many ways to be eco-friendly, clean effectively and possibly save some money in the process.

All around the house

Countertops: Using equal parts of vinegar and water in a spray bottle helps clean countertops and kills bacteria. Do not use this mixture on granite, marble or stone as the acidity is not good for these surfaces. Instead, use rubbing alcohol.

Windows: In a spray bottle, mix four parts of water with one part vinegar and the juice of one lemon. This mixture is also effective for cleaning mirrors.

In the kitchen

Microwave: Fill a bowl with water and one sliced lemon. Microwave this mixture for five minutes. Take a towel to clean off surfaces.

Oven: Heat the oven to 125 degrees. Using a spray bottle, spray vinegar on the oven interior. Add a bit of salt to a a towel damp with water to scrub and clean.

Cutting board: Slice a lemon in half. Use one half and rub over the surface. Let sit for 10 minutes. When 10 minutes has passed, take the other half of the lemon and rub to loosen any bits on the board. Rinse with water.

In the bathroom

Bath and tile: Mix ¾ cup of baking soda with ¼ cup of castile soap. Add one tablespoon of water and make a paste.

Toilets: To clean and sanitize frequently, mix a spray bottle of vinegar with five or six drops of tea tree or lemon essential oil. For a more thorough cleaning, put 10 drops of the essential oil in ½ cup of baking soda and mix with ¼ cup of vinegar.

Now it is your turn! Try one of these recipes to prove that using these non-toxic alternatives is a great green way to keep your home clean and healthy.

The rainy season is officially upon us. Conscious water use, however, is as important as ever. To reduce your water use this winter, consider installing a rain barrel.

Rain barrels are used to collect rainwater from rooftops and store it for later use in watering your garden. They allow you to supplement your water supply with a sustainable source and help preserve local watersheds by detaining rainfall.

Rain barrels can be purchased from many local hardware stores and online retailers, with prices generally starting around $80 for a 50-gallon unit. Rebates of up to $100 per rain barrel are currently available in San Mateo County, so you can install a rain barrel at your home or business for little or no net cost to you.

When you install a rain barrel, you are helping to maintain a healthy urban watershed by reducing the amount of drinking water used to irrigate your garden, and by reducing the amount of wet weather runoff that would otherwise drain to the public storm water system and ultimately go untreated into our creeks, bay, or the Pacific Ocean

If you have a roof area that drains to a downspout, a level surface on which to locate a rain barrel, and a landscaped area where you can use the captured water, a rain barrel may be a good option for you.

Visit www.BayAreaConservation.org to apply for a rain barrel rebate and get more information on other water conservation rebates available in your community.

Fall and winter are great times to have some “Edventures” with your kids!

Laying a strong conservation foundation now when children are young helps to ensure future water saving efforts. Here are some helpful tips to show your child that water conservation can be fun and engaging:

1. Get a Jump on Some Spring Plantings.

Kids love to get their hands dirty. So tap into that behavior and plant some spring bulbs now. Plants set in the fall require less water and will look better in spring.

2. Small Investment, Big Benefits.

Show your child that saving water is as easy as catching water in a barrel…literally. A rain barrel can be used to collect and store rainwater runoff, which can be used to water your plants or garden.

3. Encourage your Child to be a Drain Ranger, a Leak Detective or Deputy Drip!

Task your child to go sleuthing for leaks or ways to save or protect water around the house. Have them look for dripping faucets or together you can try the “dye test” to see if any of your toilet tanks are slowly leaking. Once found, fix the leak or clean up the potential pollutant with your child and show them that they can be part of the solution!

4. Saving Water is a Family Affair

Organize a family meeting with your child and help them make a list of ways they can help save water like the one below:

a) Keep showers to 5 minutes (a shower timer is handy).

b) When washing hands, turn off water when lathering hands with soap.

c) Fill the sink when hand washing dishes—don’t let the water run.

d) Turn off water while brushing teeth.

5. Go On a Watershed “Edventure!”

Drive, hike, walk or bike to explore creek, bay and ocean habitats. Take the time to show your child that pollution affects our rivers, lakes and oceans.

Teaching your children about water conservation shouldn’t be boring and dull…make it an “edventure.” Trust us…your kids will thank you for it!