Why is preventing illicit discharges important?
Stormwater is what flows over sidewalks, streets, and parking lots collecting excess nutrients and pollutants with no opportunity for soil and plants, or water treatment to filter out pollutants before entering into a water body.
Stormwater runoff is often worsened by human activities. Anything on the ground such as sediment, pet waste, pesticides, fertilizers, automobile fluids, yard wastes, and litter flows over HARD SURFACES directly into storm drains. This type of pollution is different from the water that goes down a sink or toilet in your home, because it is untreated and flows directly to a lake, river, or the ocean. By carrying all these different kinds of pollution into our waterways, stormwater runoff itself becomes a pollutant.