What is stormwater?
Stormwater includes all of the water from storm events as well as the water left from melting snow. Where this water occurs in vegetated areas, it percolates into the ground, nourishing plants and passing through plant material, soil, and substrate until it eventually reaches the ground water layer below. Most of this water is utilized by vegetation before it reaches ground water, but the remainder is filtered through these layers of organic material so that most contaminants are removed.
What is Stormwater? (flash)
Stormwater becomes an issue when it becomes runoff. Runoff is water that collects on an impervious surface like roofs, roads, and parking areas. These waters collect pollutants like oil, grease and heavy metals from vehicles, chemicals and animal waste from lawns, and physical debris like soils and trash.
Why should I care?
Most people think, if they think about stormwater at all, that these waters are collected in the same system that treats our sewage and treated before release into the environment. This is a common misconception.
Stormwater in municipal areas collects from these impervious surfaces and is caught and conveyed in the City's vast stormwater system, which is separate from our sanitary sewer system. This system conveys stormwater through catch basins, ditches and stormwater lines into drywells and in some cases, directly to wetlands and the lake itself. Contaminants that stormwater may pick up that could affect the lake directly include things like bacteria and parasites from pet waste, which can affect recreational activities, and runoff from lawns or car washing, which may wash high concentrations of nutrients into stormwater, leading to unsightly, smelly and potentially toxic algae blooms, particularly in warm weather.
Trash, silt and soil, heavy metals, and chemicals can impair habitat for important wildlife species that depend on the lake and wetlands for survival.
Stormwater is the leading contributor to water quality pollution of urban waterways in Washington.
- Washington State Department of Ecology
The city depends on its tourism value, which is directly related to the purity and attractiveness of Moses Lake. It is all of our responsibilities to learn, implement and practice good management so that it remains our most valuable resource.
Good management practices cost little in the way of time or money, but return value to us a hundredfold. It all depends on all of US.
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It's OUR LAKE -
Keep it beautiful!
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