Stormwater Runoff

• Excavating even undisturbed land will unearth a potpourri of natural metals that can harm the environment when they end up in stormwater runoff, among them cadmium, lead and uranium. Most urban construction occurs on land with a complicated industrial history, and excavating it releases all kinds of additional substances harmful to the environment: various metal oxides, industrial garbage and microbes, human and animal waste.
  
  

Stormwater Hazards

• In dry weather, most of these harmful substances will remain localized; in winter months, however, rainwater will carry them away from the construction site into streams and stormwater sewers, and thereafter into lakes, wetlands and coastal waters--the same water we swim in, fish in and use for drinking water.
  
  

Stormwater Mitigation

• Recognizing the systemic risk, governmental bodies, particularly at the municipal level, have passed regulation intended to minimize stormwater runoff into our waterways. These "stormwater mitigation" laws generally impose requirements intended either to trap stormwater and localize it or to process it through filtration, or both.
  
  

Algae Bloom

• A particular hazard, recognized by the EPA, is algae bloom, the result of widespread residential and farm chemical fertilization. These fertilizers act on algae in a way similar to their affect on plants: in response to fertilization the waterborne algae grows rapidly. When this proliferation of stimulated algae eventually dies it sinks to the bottom, sweeping oxygen out of the water through decomposition as it goes. Without oxygen, plants, shellfish and fish soon die, creating "dead zones."
  
  

Minimizing Stormwater Pollution

• The EPA, along with most states and larger municipalities, have made other regulations and recommendations to minimize stormwater pollution. Here are a few of the most important (these are paraphrases of information drawn from bulletins issued by the EPA, the States of California and Florida and municipalities):
  
  1. Recycle as much waste as possible
  2. Properly dispose of chemicals, insecticides and petrochemicals; keep them away from stormdrains.
  3. Maintain water discipline. The average American household uses more than 5,000 gallons of water each month (cited in a Naupun Utililities customer service bulletin). Almost all of this used and contaminated water ends back up in the watershed.
  4. Pick up and properly dispose of pet waste.