Tony Shelton
BS Detector, Esquire
During my trip up and down the West Coast I had the opportunity to speak with various enforcement agencies for storm water management.
I was pleasantly surprised that most, if not all of them, seemed to have plenty of common sense and took their job seriously. I didn't come across any of the type of people like Jim Gamble has been describing in his fabulist manner over the past few years.
None of them had any clue what the contents of sidewalk cleaning runoff consists of. That has been our mistake. We have allowed our own ranks to perpetuate the myth that we are allowing dangerous contaminants to enter the waters of the US, and it's just plain false.
I had often wondered why the cities weren't taking more responsibility in this matter and trying to come up with better ways to filter the water as it makes it way through the tributaries. After all, God did a pretty good job of filtering the Gulf after the big spill, looks like he'd have a method of filtering the minuscule amount, in comparison, of contaminants that run off our streets.
On this trip I found out that YES, they have been working on that and YES it is effective.
153 million gallons of runoff, treated water, and shallow ground water flow into Lake Mead each day.
IF 50 powerwash rigs worked 8 hrs each night in the valley and ALL the runoff went directly into the storm drain, they would still produce less than 1/1,000th of the daily runoff for the valley.
When you take into consideration that most, if not all of the the powerwash runoff either goes into landscaping or evaporates ON PROPERTY prior to getting anywhere near the MS4, that number lowers exponentially.
Our streets are swept on a weekly or twice weekly basis with vacuum sweepers and our commercial customers coordinate concrete cleaning with the sweeper service schedule so that anything that is left after evaporation is picked up by the sweepers and dumped as dry refuse.
Let's make an exaggerated assumption that half that runoff makes it into the wash to the lake. That's less than 1/2,000th of the total.
After the sensible Las Vegas BMP's are followed, there won't be much or any suspended solids left it the water, but what happens if there are some left?
Here's what happens:
This is the one of the Las Vegas Wash tributaries. For years they have been, as have many jurisdictions around the country, working towards filtering God's way. This man made "creek" consists entirely of runoff, treated water, and shallow ground water. This particular picture is in the MIDDLE of town. That means it's already picked up runoff from half the city and has a lot of filtration left including the final "wash" area before emptying into Lake Mead.
You'd think this would be a toxic soup filled with all kinds of nasty substances. Especially with all the oil, transmission fluid and other such stuff that washes off the streets and directly in to here. Well, you'd be wrong.
There are plenty of small fish and lots of birds living in and around this creek. This is water that has flowed directly off the streets. The vegetation is a very adequate filter.
This all comes out at the Las Vegas Wash. We use to swim and water ski there all the time. We never thought it was dirty or contaminated. It just looked like the rest of Lake Mead, CLEAN.
Here is a link for more information about the Las Vegas Wash. Phoenix has similar filtration, as do many cities across the country.
http://www.lvwash.org/html/
None of us want to harm the environment. But many of us are crying out for common sense. Looking to our industry to "clean up the waters" is like telling someone to wash their elbows because they have BO.
We aren't the problem.
We are the solution.
I was pleasantly surprised that most, if not all of them, seemed to have plenty of common sense and took their job seriously. I didn't come across any of the type of people like Jim Gamble has been describing in his fabulist manner over the past few years.
None of them had any clue what the contents of sidewalk cleaning runoff consists of. That has been our mistake. We have allowed our own ranks to perpetuate the myth that we are allowing dangerous contaminants to enter the waters of the US, and it's just plain false.
I had often wondered why the cities weren't taking more responsibility in this matter and trying to come up with better ways to filter the water as it makes it way through the tributaries. After all, God did a pretty good job of filtering the Gulf after the big spill, looks like he'd have a method of filtering the minuscule amount, in comparison, of contaminants that run off our streets.
On this trip I found out that YES, they have been working on that and YES it is effective.
153 million gallons of runoff, treated water, and shallow ground water flow into Lake Mead each day.
IF 50 powerwash rigs worked 8 hrs each night in the valley and ALL the runoff went directly into the storm drain, they would still produce less than 1/1,000th of the daily runoff for the valley.
When you take into consideration that most, if not all of the the powerwash runoff either goes into landscaping or evaporates ON PROPERTY prior to getting anywhere near the MS4, that number lowers exponentially.
Our streets are swept on a weekly or twice weekly basis with vacuum sweepers and our commercial customers coordinate concrete cleaning with the sweeper service schedule so that anything that is left after evaporation is picked up by the sweepers and dumped as dry refuse.
Let's make an exaggerated assumption that half that runoff makes it into the wash to the lake. That's less than 1/2,000th of the total.
After the sensible Las Vegas BMP's are followed, there won't be much or any suspended solids left it the water, but what happens if there are some left?
Here's what happens:
This is the one of the Las Vegas Wash tributaries. For years they have been, as have many jurisdictions around the country, working towards filtering God's way. This man made "creek" consists entirely of runoff, treated water, and shallow ground water. This particular picture is in the MIDDLE of town. That means it's already picked up runoff from half the city and has a lot of filtration left including the final "wash" area before emptying into Lake Mead.
You'd think this would be a toxic soup filled with all kinds of nasty substances. Especially with all the oil, transmission fluid and other such stuff that washes off the streets and directly in to here. Well, you'd be wrong.
There are plenty of small fish and lots of birds living in and around this creek. This is water that has flowed directly off the streets. The vegetation is a very adequate filter.
This all comes out at the Las Vegas Wash. We use to swim and water ski there all the time. We never thought it was dirty or contaminated. It just looked like the rest of Lake Mead, CLEAN.
Here is a link for more information about the Las Vegas Wash. Phoenix has similar filtration, as do many cities across the country.
http://www.lvwash.org/html/
None of us want to harm the environment. But many of us are crying out for common sense. Looking to our industry to "clean up the waters" is like telling someone to wash their elbows because they have BO.
We aren't the problem.
We are the solution.