The Dangers of Storm Drains

Left on its own, rain and melted snow normally are absorbed into the ground, benefiting life in general. It filters down through the soil, replenishes streams, rivers, aquafers, feeds plants, soil organisms and, by extension, everybody who eats them. It’s an incredibly good thing.

Stormwater diversion systems, however, disrupt this process and create a host of problems. When rainwater runs across your roof, into the gutters, down the downspouts, across the driveway and into the storm drains along the curbs, a domino effect is set into motion…every time it rains.

But it’s not just storm drains.  Burning billions of tons of fossil fuel, every day, for far too long, is a huge part of the problem.  Obviously.

The combination has led to ever increasing and ever more profound–

• flash flooding
• drought
• erosion
• pollution.

This is the obvious and natural result of too much water, from higher intensity and more frequent storm systems, having to move through unnatural stormwater diversion systems.  It’s all connected.  Climate change is accelerating and magnifying humanity’s hubris, showing us just how capable we are not.  It’s like the entire ocean having to move through the Panama Canal.  All at once.  While the entire ocean can move through this artificial conveyance, it can’t do it all at the same time.  Not without some dire consequences.

In this series on water, I will explore these dangerous aspects of rainwater diversion, look at the simplicity and elegance of Nature’s design for this, and explore some simple ways you can start restoring the Natural process, even if it’s only on a small scale.

But first, the problems.

Storm Drains & Flash Flooding

When rainwater is not naturally absorbed into the ground where it falls, but is instead shunted away through pipes, it creates a distribution problem.  Especially when there is a deluge.  Especially when there are multiple deluges over a long time.

More frequent and heavier rainfalls can easily overwhelm municipal stormwater management systems.  They were not designed with climate change style storms in mind.  This leads to backups throughout the system, and localized flooding. Local floods, in turn, put an even faster spin on an already vicious circle by leading to more runoff, causing sewer backups, flooded basements, and the introduction of ever larger concentrations of contaminants…garbage, sediment, bacteria, excess nutrients, fossil fuel by-products…into the waterways.

Redesigning municipal stormwater management systems with climate change style storms in mind, is not the solution.  According to Albert Einstein, doing the same thing and expecting different results is a sign of insanity.  Besides being extremely expensive, it would only create more of the same problem.  Perhaps, if it included a huge network of rain gardens in the plan…that might work.

Now clearly, the whole planet is not flooded. But localized flooding is on the rise.  Dramatically.

And here’s the thing.  Most of the rainwater is still being soaked into the ground.

While urban areas are largely cemented over, suburban areas still have the ability to absorb some of the rain.  Houses and paved roads don’t allow for rainwater absorption.  In some suburban neighborhoods, houses and roads are crammed together quite tightly, while others are more spacious.  Rural areas, of course, are the most absorbent, but then that’s counteracted by all the toxic runoff of Big Ag.  This is all more than enough to throw a big fat ugly wrench into a subtle, refined and delicately balanced machine.

(Not machine.  Organism.  System.  Life.  Masterpiece of Creation.  I just wanted to use the wrench metaphor.)

Storm Drains & Drought

It sounds overly simple and kind of stupid to say it like this, but when there is an excess of water in one place, there is a corresponding lack of it somewhere else.  Except it’s not stupid.  It’s true.  We live on a finite planet and the amount of water on it stays more or less the same.

It moves through it’s cycles, of course, of absorption, evaporation and precipitation, changing stages from solid, to liquid to gaseous.  Fresh flows into salt, salt evaporates into clouds which comes down again as fresh.  It’s a HUGE amount of water, to be sure, but still finite.

It’s exactly the right amount for this planet to function properly in the support of life.  And new water is not being made.  It’s simply filtered and recycled over and over.  Kind of gross to think of your delicious glass of ice water in terms of once having been somebody’s pee, but there you go.  We’re all one.  And we’re all mostly water.  There is a link between floods and droughts.  They are two ends of the same spectrum,  And both extremes are getting more extreme.  A hotter temperature increases evaporation, which makes heavier clouds and rainfall. And it is connected to burning fossil fuels.

Storm Drains & Erosion

When water finds its way directly into creeks and rivers via pipes, instead of filtering in naturally through the dirt, not only is the water quality severely impacted, but the soil is adversely affected as well.

Drought conditions concentrate the amount of petroleum products, pesticides, sediment, nutrients and other pollutants in waterways, as there’s nothing to dilute them.  And flooding situations lead to sewer overflows into the waterways.  Neither of these are acceptable.

Both of these conditions lead to soil erosion.  Artificial viaducts and ditches quickly pour commercial and residential runoff into rivers.  This overly fast increase in water volume leads to erosion and flooding.  Plus, without enough water absorbing into the soil, the native plants begin to die off. This, in turn, adversely affects the soil organisms, which in turn diminishes the soil quality, which allows for erosion as there’s not enough organic material holding it together.  And this, obviously negatively affects the spawning, development and migration patterns of countless water and waterbank species.  And if that wasn’t enough, this alteration of natural flow systems  prevents the replenishing of groundwater and aquafers, leading, yet again, back to drought…and flooding.

Storm Drains & Pollution

With so much surface area covered by impervious cement, asphalt, buildings and other development, and so much water rushing quickly through pipes, instead of filtering slowly through the dirt, even a small rain can quickly overflow the banks of a creek or river.  The pollutants from urban areas is intense.  Depending where you are, the runoff from roads alone contributes up to 75% of the toxins into the water supply.  Road runoff has been shown to
contain–

•  zinc
• cadmium
• copper
• nickel
• lead
• chromium
• manganese
• iron
• vanadium
• cobalt
• aluminum

All dumped straight into the water, unfiltered or remediated by hyperaccumulators.  It’s not ok.  Nature is brilliant at healing, but when we alter the course of water, we alter the climate.

Storm drains are only the tip of the iceberg.

• Engineers have reversed the flows of rivers, can turn them on and off like spigots.
• There are 57,000 large dams in the world.
• Worldwide, cities import the equivalent of 10 Colorado rivers to meet their needs.
• There are so many pipelines and canals that, stretched end to end, they would reach halfway around the planet.
• Huge pumps draw up water from aquafers to irrigate crops.
• Major rivers are depleted to trickles.

At the height of the Industrial Revolution, urban rivers were actually catching on fire, because of all the toxic garbage that was being dumped into them.  That, thankfully, has been dealt with, but it’s nowhere near over.

The hurricanes, floods and droughts are getting worse.

These huge problems are beyond most of us.

I want to focus on positive…even if small…changes we can all make to start fixing it, rather than flailing about uselessly, all too easily consumed by anger.  So on that note, I hope you will join me for the next article in the series, about Healthy Water Cycles.  Because we need a picture of what they’re supposed to be.  Then, join me for how to t mimic healthy water cycles on a small scale, by making Rain Gardens.

And, as always, please leave a comment.  I love hearing from you.

“Water is the reason of our birth; it is the healer, the destroyer and the final consumer.”

Neeraj Singhvi