How Stormwater Impacts the Bay

Amanda Booth (Senior Environment Program Analyst):

My name is Amanda Booth. I work for the City of San Pablo. I am their Senior Environmental Program Analyst and I help to implement the stormwater permit for the city.

Michele Mancuso (Senior Watershed Management Planning Specialist):

Hi, I am Michele Mancuso. I work for Unincorporated Contra Costa County in the County Watershed Program and we administer the stormwater permit for the county, which is part of a regional stormwater permit. 

Amanda Booth (Senior Environment Program Analyst):

All right, we’ll go ahead and get started. Thanks for being here today, Michelle. I just want to start off with a couple of basic questions. 

So what is stormwater and where does it go? 

Michele Mancuso (Senior Watershed Management Planning Specialist):

Stormwater is rainwater that falls over the landscape and flows into our creeks and into the bay. And stormwater rain falls onto industrial facilities, construction facilities, our cities, our roads, and so it picks up things along the way as it goes into the creeks. 

Amanda Booth (Senior Environment Program Analyst):

What exactly is it picking up and what pollutants then is it bringing to the creeks? 

Michele Mancuso (Senior Watershed Management Planning Specialist):

It flows over our driveways and our roads. It picks up things like little bits of oil, little pieces of tires, trash, sediment, leaves, and then it flows into storm drains along the streets and it flows directly into creeks and into the bay.

Amanda Booth (Senior Environment Program Analyst):

How does that stormwater then, you know, affect water quality or wildlife or how are picking up all of those different things you were talking about, how does that actually affect the bay ecosystem? 

Michele Mancuso (Senior Watershed Management Planning Specialist):

So this is a problem for fish, for animals, and for birds. As there are pieces of plastic or oil, they can either suffocate or eat different pieces that aren’t food and end up starving. And then it affects them physically because they’re living in the water or drinking or eating the water. So it’s affecting their biological systems and the chemistry of the water. 

Amanda Booth (Senior Environment Program Analyst):

Gotcha. All right, well, if we have all those problems, so then can you actually talk a little bit about the Clean Water Act and what it does and how it helps to protect waterways? 

Michele Mancuso (Senior Watershed Management Planning Specialist):

Yes, the Clean Water Act, it regulates certain discharges into the creeks and the bay. So the Clean Water Act– so we look at different systems and facilities, like a wastewater treatment plant where our sanitary sewer goes, and they go into the bay. In the past, in the 50s and 60s, we had fires, rivers that caught on fire because there were so many industrial pollutants. We had rivers and streams that we didn’t want to touch or go into, that if you touched your black, your hand came out black.

And so the Clean Water Act, it kind of takes an account of what is going into the bay and requires industrial polluters, like industrial facilities, commercial facilities, cities, wastewater treatment plants to be aware of what’s going into the bay and get a permit from the regular environmental regulatory authority so they know what is going into the bay. 

Amanda Booth (Senior Environment Program Analyst):

What can people do to help prevent these pollutants that you’re talking about from going into the bay in their everyday lives? 

Michele Mancuso (Senior Watershed Management Planning Specialist):

1. Proper Car Maintenance and Cleanliness 

In our everyday lives, we can be aware of things that we do, such as is our car repaired? Is it leaking oil? If it does leak oil, we clean it up and we get it fixed. If we want to wash our cars, we can go to a car wash where it goes into the sanitary sewer and then the water is treated before it goes into this bay. Or you could wash it on a landscaped area or block the water or try to wash it in a way that you don’t have water that’s pulling off the metals and the oils and such from your car and the soap. So we prevent that from going into the storm drains and into the bay. 

2. Properly Disposing of Trash and Picking up Litter

Now another big problem is trash. We hear a lot about trash and little pieces of trash that end up in the roadway, in a ditch that then goes into a creek. So picking up trash is really important. This all ends up flowing into the creek and into the bay and damaging wildlife, hurting them.

Amanda Booth (Senior Environment Program Analyst):

If anybody wanted more information or wanted some tips on what they could do to help, can you put us to a website or somewhere that would be really helpful for the public? 

Michele Mancuso (Senior Watershed Management Planning Specialist):

Sure. A good website to go to would be the Contra Costa Clean Water Program. So that’s @cccleanwaterprogram.

And remember, only rain down the drain. 

Amanda Booth (Senior Environment Program Analyst):

All right. Thanks so much.

Michele Mancuso (Senior Watershed Management Planning Specialist):

Thank you.