City, scouts team up to keep water clean
By Kate Daly Contributing Writer

Marlborough - Those storm drain grates along roads and in parking lots all lead, not to a water treatment plant, but directly to area wetlands and through them to groundwater, lakes and rivers that eventually lead to faucets.

"We want to educate people that there's a diff erence between the storm drain and the sewer drain," Marlborough's Conservation Officer Priscilla Ryder said. "Whatever goes into a storm drain is untreated. That includes road salt and sand, oil residue from cars and anything people mistakenly dump there, such as paint, discarded chemicals, even lawn treatments that wash off into the street.

"It goes down the drain to the nearest wetland," she said. "Whatever goes in the street, you're actually swimming in it or fishing in it or drinking it, so be careful."

As part of the education process, Ryder has been able to enlist Boy Scouts trying to earn Eagle Scout classification. One of the tasks they take on is placing "No dumping: drains to waterways" stickers on storm drains, and then hanging educational information on the doors of houses on the street.

"It's everybody's problem," she said. "We all use the roads; we all drink the water. We're all part of it."

That's what makes the scouts' participation so important, she explained. Not only do the Eagle Scout candidates learn, but so do their parents and the scouts who help them, and, of course, the homeowners who get the information on their doors.

One group of scouts who had researched the issue saw someone pouring paint down a storm drain, Ryder said. The person had no idea the paint would wind up untreated in the wetland until the scouts stopped him and gave him the information, she said.

"It was simply a lack of knowledge," she said.

For Eagle Scout candidate Tom Symes, 18, the work he did on the project in January has changed him in at least one practical way.

"I didn't know originally that all the oil and everything went right into the water," he said. "I even got a new vehicle. My Jetta had an oil leak and it was really bad for the environment. So I have a new car that is better for the environment."

Symes, who hopes to receive his Eagle Scout standing in April, said the project is worthwhile.

"I had a lot of fun with this project," he said. "A lot of people learned."

The process is working. At a garden club meeting, when Ryder asked who knew where storm sewers drained, two people knew. One had received information through the scouts' campaign, she said.

Improvements are continually being made in the laws that govern wetland protection, Ryder said. For example, storm drains for new construction projects now have to have catch basins with a four-foot sump, two feet deeper than earlier regulations required. This allows more particulates and sand to drain out of the water before it travels to the wetlands, Ryder said. Private owners are required to clean their sumps regularly to be sure they are working at top capacity and the city also has a regular maintenance plan, although Ryder said she would like to find the resources to clean city catch basins more often.

The more roads and parking lots in the area, the heavier load local wetlands receive, she said.

"In nature, [wetlands] get typically 50 percent or more" of runoff water, Ryder explained. With paving, that increases dramatically.

"By developing, we're changing the whole character of our landscape," she said. "We need to change our engineering to mimic nature."