Safeguard Your Sewers

Print This Page

How to take action

• Never put anything into a storm drain. Even a small amount of litter and liquid contaminants can cause toxic water pollution that will kill fish and other wildlife.
• Always dispose of hazardous waste (paint, poisons, batteries, etc.) at the specified location in your community.
• If you are putting in a new driveway or fixing up your existing one, use a permeable driveway surface to ensure the safest water runoff.
• Take care when you wash the car – or the dog. The sudsy water can be harmful, even if you use biodegradable soap. A permeable surface will help keep water from running into the gutter and down the drain, or you can rinse the soap onto your lawn. Alternatively, find a professional car wash that uses safe, biodegradable soap and wash your car there.
• Don't colour your world. Never let paint or solvents flow directly into sewers or storm drains. Use paint as efficiently as possible, then wash latex paints in your sink. Oil paint needs to be wiped up as much as possible with old newspaper, and then cleaned up with paint thinner.
• Empty pool and hot tub water slowly, into the ground.
• Paint some yellow fish. The Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans has a yellow fish program, that works with residents and school groups to paint yellow fish on storm drains, reminding people that the drains flow directly into critical aquatic habitat. If you don’t have fish in your area, gather a group together to do it, or contact the school. You can tie it in with a workshop or lecture on protecting waterways.

Why it makes a difference

• Everything that empties into a storm drain eventually ends up in fish and wildlife habitat. Putting toxins, or even soaps, into storm sewers causes shifts in the chemistry of the water that can negatively impact aquatic life downstream.
• It's far better for water to flow through the earth before it reaches a water body than to flow on the surface until it finds a drain. Soil and plants help to filter and dilute any toxins. If you are not certain that a given substance is non-toxic, dispose of it in your community’s hazardous waste facilities.
• Filling storm sewers with litter, or even leaves from your yard, can cause flooding during times of heavy rain or ice melt.
• Plastic and other non-biodegradable litter that runs into storm sewers ends up choking lakes, oceans, and the bodies of birds and other animals.
• Only about 1% of all water found on this planet is easily accessible for human use, and the water cycle that carries our water from oceans, through the atmosphere, and back into freshwater reservoirs, can take hundreds of years. It is essential to protect freshwater resources. Keeping storm sewers clean is one key step.

For more information

• Read about the permeable driveway project at Nanaimo's Pollution Control Centre.
• Find out more about where garbage in a sewer ends up – hint, it's the world's biggest landfill.
• You might be able to find out about the storm drain system in your area through your city's Public Works department, or Regional District Office.
• Trout Unlimited Canada's Yellowfish Road program can help you organize storm drain marking events in your community.