Oengus,

Please use this map to visit the Combined Sewer Overflows in the creeks the next time we have a big rain. If you have a camera or a video camera, please record what you see coming from these "permitted" outfalls. These may not be the only contributors to the pollutants you describe, but they certainly don't help. This is why my friend Martha and I are working to get roof rain diverted from the storm sewers. NEORSD CSO program has a diagram of how the storm sewers and sanitary sewers combine and overflow dumping sanitary sewage into our waterways in times of heavy rain. We will pay $1.6 billion for the improvements they suggest are necessary to control this problem. Now while I don't disagree that these measures may indeed need to be undertaken -- infrastructure is a big part of the problem, I do think that there are ways that individuals, homeowners and businesses can help to alleviate the issue. In most cities homeowners are encouraged to be part of the solution by properly disconnecting downspouts or roof drains.

Here are links to the pages describing downspout disconnects why and how -- in DC, Chicago, Milwaukee (dos and don’ts), Kansas City, in Toronto, Vancouver, Minneapolis, in Portland, State of Indiana, Mid-America Regional Council .

In addition, most areas have Low Impact Development programs. So for example, when a WalMart decides to locate somewhere in a municipality, they are not just charged for their sewer based on their water usage, but on their sewerage and their area of impermeable surfaces such as their big box store and their massive parking areas. Homeowners are charged this way as well so that residents and businesses share the expense of keeping our water clean, rather than having the sewer bill based on the water usage and doubling the sewer bill for residents and businesses across the board. This is why the NEORSD needs to look at restructuring as a storm water utility that can regulate the impermeable surfaces off of which so much polluted rain water runs. The greasy stuff that flows off the strip center parking lot and the road runs untreated into the waterway -- it doesn't have to be routed through a landfill to be carrying toxins to the creek, it just happens every time it rains. Animal excrement (that is not collected and disposed of properly), soap from driveway car washing, paint and other solvents poured into storm sewers and the Trugreen ChemLawn applications that run off into the storm sewers are other culprits. We need a massive education campaign here in Northeast Ohio to help inform citizens and business owners as to how they can be a part of the solution in the fight to save Lake Erie and its tributaries. There is a wonderful video here about living in a watershed and what you should know. There is no one for whom this is not pertinent -- we all live in a watershed.  A CSO education program and incentives to reduce the number of outfalls along with a ban on herbicides and pesticides could greatly improve our water resources here in Northeast Ohio. We are hampered by the Ohio Building code and the lack of home rule to set higher standards for our communities, we’re waiting for the state’s policy makers to catch up to the environmental degradation their outdated policies have wrought. We are waiting for a storm water utility to be in place. We are still planning, studying, discussing, strategizing and considering. Meanwhile other communities are years ahead of us in addressing not from the top down, but from the grassroots up the solutions to these massive and complicated problems. It is time for some strategic doing in NEO. Citizens can and should be a part of that campaign to improve our water quality. After all we drink, wash with it, and bathe in it don’t we?