What is a storm drain?

Have you ever seen holes or openings at the curb?
Or in the street?
Sometimes they have grates over them?
Those are probably storm drains. There might be one near your house.

What is a storm drain for?

When it rains, all that water falls on streets, lawns, and buildings. To prevent flooding, storm drains collect the storm water and the storm drain system carries it to creeks, lakes and rivers.

How do they do that?

Storm drains lead to a bunch of pipes underneath the ground. When it rains, the water goes from the streets into the storm drains, through pipes like the one in the picture to the right, and into the nearest creeks, lakes and rivers.

What's the difference between the storm drains outside and the drains inside my house?

The storm drain system carries rainwater straight to creeks, lakes and rivers. The drain system in your house is called the wastewater system.

What is the wastewater system?

Wastewater is the water that you use in your home to wash the dishes or to take a bath.
It goes down the drains in your home to pipes that lead to a special factory where the water is cleaned and treated.

Why should I care about storm water?

Because unlike wastewater, storm water doesn't get treated and cleaned before it empties into creeks, lakes and rivers. So if water goes into the storm drain dirty, it stays that way.

How does storm water get dirty?

As storm water drains into the nearest creek, lake or river, it picks up everything in its way, including pollutants like motor oil and grass clippings (as in the picture to the right). And even though it's against the law, some people dump trash into storm drains.

Why should we be concerned about this?

Because the water that enters storm drains doesn't get cleaned, all that trash you can see and the pollutants you can't see – like poisonous chemicals, pesticides, soap and germs – end up in your neighborhood creeks, rivers and lakes. This means that the water is unsafe not only for fish and frogs, but also humans.