[Water_news] 4. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: WATER QUALITY - 7/8/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

July 8, 2008

 

4. Water Quality –

 

 

 

Carwashes don't have to pollute: WATER COLLECTION KITS KEEP RUNOFF OUT OF BAY WATERS

San Jose Mercury News- 7/8/08

By Jessie Mangaliman

The season of the fundraiser carwash is here, and some cities across the Bay Area are quietly pushing schools, churches and scout groups to take up a little-known green measure to reduce the runoff of pollution into bay waters: a carwash water collection kit.

 

The kit collects dirty, potentially contaminated water from a carwash and pumps it into a sewage drain or a landscaped area.

 

Non-profit groups in Palo Alto, Mountain View, Campbell, Los Gatos and Monte Sereno have been using the kits for years as part of a state requirement that cities reduce runoff to storm drains.

 

Sunnyvale is the latest Bay Area city to purchase the kits, loaning them to local groups, not just as a way to reduce pollution runoff but also to teach residents an important environmental lesson, said Kristy McCumby, Sunnyvale's environmental specialist.

 

"I thought it was a good idea," said Claire Umeda, 16, a Fremont High School student who helped organize a recent carwash at her Sunnyvale school using the kit. She and her colleagues at the school's Key Club organized the carwash to raise funds for the American Cancer Society.

 

The students raised $400, said Umeda, who will be a junior in the fall. City water and environmental officials are hoping that more groups will use the kits, and in the process raise their environmental awareness quotients.

"What's good for charity," Umeda said, "is good for the environment."

 

The kit pump didn't work during the Fremont

High carwash - Umeda said she and others were not sure why - but the 20 students who volunteered, newly educated about the importance of reducing runoff into storm drains, used plastic buckets instead to collect dirty water and watered a nearby lawn and trees.

 

In general, Sunnyvale like most Bay Area cities, discourage residents from washing cars on driveways because the water discharges directly into storm drains that empty into Bay waters.

 

"Only rain in the drain," said Jill Bicknell, assistant program manager for the Santa Clara Valley Urban Runoff Pollution Prevention Program, a group of 13 Bay Area cities working to reduce runoff. The better alternative, she said, is a commercial carwash, where water is recycled. Or if you're raising money for charity, use a carwash kit.

 

Water from a washed car can contain oil and grease, copper from brake pads and zinc from tires, Bicknell said. Collected and discharged into sewage drains, the water can be treated before it's released in the bay.

 

"It was a nice lesson about the environment for kids and parents," said Stephen May, a Sunnyvale parent who organized a carwash fundraiser last year for an elementary school.

 

San Jose does not have carwash kits to loan to groups raising funds for charity, said John Mukhar, senior engineer with the city's environmental services and watershed protections unit.

 

But the city requires groups to obtain a special events permit that costs about $1,000.

 

"It's cost-prohibitive," Mukhar said. Most groups that inquire about holding a fundraising carwash generally back out when they learn of the permit's cost, he said.

 

About 14 years ago, Palo Alto and Mountain View collaborated on a plan and campaign to reduce storm water runoff. One of the first steps the cities took was to regulate carwashes at auto dealerships, said Eric Anderson, Mountain View's urban runoff coordinator. Dealerships now send cars to commercial carwashes.

 

A second step was to educate residents about storm drains and pollution, and encourage use of the car-wash kits, Anderson said.

 

"We certainly don't want to prevent groups from doing this," Anderson said. "But we hope it's done in a way that polluted water doesn't get into the storm drain system."#

http://www.mercurynews.com/localnewsheadlines/ci_9815136