The
Environmental Services Division oversees the city's
exclusive residential waste contracts and non-exclusive
waste franchises.
Cities
have two drainage systems - the sewers and the
storm drains. The sewer system takes waste water
from homes and businesses to a treatment plant
before discharging it to the ocean. The storm
drain system is designed to prevent flooding by
carrying excess rainwater away from city streets
out to the ocean.
Rain water mixed with urban pollutants often creates
storm water pollution. Urban runoff pollution
may also flow to the ocean through the storm drain
system. Pollutants included in storm water and
urban runoff are: trash, oil and other automotive
fluids, paint and construction debris, yard and
pet wastes, pesticides and litter, just to name
a few.
Storm
water/urban runoff pollution contaminates the
ocean, closes beaches, harms aquatic life and
increases the risk of inland flooding by clogging
gutter and catch basins. In all cities there are
many miles of pipes that would take similar pollutants
straight to the ocean. Each day many gallons of
polluted urban runoff enter the ocean untreated,
leaving toxic chemicals in our surf and tons of
trash on our beaches.
This
page has been put together to inform you how to
prevent ocean pollution that results from "storm
water" or "urban runoff". |
