The video is from “Diver Laura” James, who explains:
This is ‘the monster’ (as we dubbed it in 2012), a large stormwater outfall directly off Alki Beach between 55th and 56th street on Alki (NOT the CSO).
This storm drain gets the street runoff from the whole hillside up to Admiral Way. That’s a LOT of polluted stormwater runoff!
We can’t stop the rain, but we CAN reduce the flow of polluted stormwater runoff by following some simple personal actions.
learn more here: www.tox-ick.org
Nice, fun seeing the other side of Seattle most never get to see. The fish at 4min on the video look like they’re checking out what the dive team is up to.We can help limit some storm water runoff by limiting how much concrete and paving we add, which includes adding large buildings where smaller homes once stood with gardens and lawns. The main reason we have run off into the storm drain is there’s no natural filtration system in place to take it in. Rubber from vehicle tires becomes little beads of rubber as it wears off tires, or chunks off with retreads, that typically ends up in the storm drains. Keeping your vehicle in good shape with suspension that works right and an alignment will make your tires last longer and limit how much additional rubber is being worn off at a faster rate. I’d be interested in how many tires Metro replaces in a given year, what the count is for tire companies (including Costco) replacing tires in King County.Pick up your garbage and dispose of it properly. If you see waste you can pick up and throw in a trash bin, do it. If you see hazardous waste being dumped and left around the city, use the find-it-fix-it app. Vehicle batteries, oil leaks, antifreeze, that’s all incredibly toxic and once it’s in the storm drains you won’t be able to get it back out of Puget Sound. You see it every day, report it and contact our local politicians offices to make sure they know it’s important we fix the issues and allocate adequate budgets to prevent destruction of our environment, not just making news headlines without a legitimate long lasting plan for the future.
Very good points Mike. As we still need to use these vehicles it is very dependent on how we drive that determines what we leave behind. This includes brake pad wear, auto fluids and as you mentioned, tire wear. Driving smooth and patient will help in a variety of ways.
I am surprised that the whole hillside up to Admiral Way is not connected to the our expensive treatment plants.Mikes claim about limiting the amount of paving and construction is a red herring as the existing buildings have traditionally hard-lined the runoff to the combined sewer causing raw sewage discharges into the Sound. New construction, however is required to address hard surface runoff as never before. Now every new building is required to buffer and limit the storm drain runoff with permeable ‘coffins’ to allow runoff to permeate the soil rarely contributing any runoff to the storm drains.
Would it not be more conservative with less environmental impact if we retrofit the existing homes rather than new construction. It’s great to have it required on all new construction after @RainwiseSeattle has been doing this to existing homes for years. Also many home owners have been creating their ow swales and rain gardens.
Thank you Diver Laura for sharing the hidden problem of our rainy slopesAs we are all hillside dwellers we have an extreme responsibility to limit our toxicity. It is not just the hard surfaces. It is also our lawns and ground water. There are many things we can do to limit our impact. Diver Laura and Sustainable West Seattle’s stormwater group has published a guide for limiting our feeding of the toxic monster. Don’t feed the monster! http://www.tox-ick.org .
Diver Laura gets my vote for West Seattle superhero of 2019. Thank you for bringing awareness to what we are doing to our local waters- we can all do our part to improve the run off from our households and streets. Alki Beach and Puget sound are our greatest pride and worth protecting.
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