Storm Drains

To be truly green, you have to get down and dirty, it seems. As Baltimore officials begin to tackle the polluted runoff fouling the harbor and the Chesapeake Bay, they are turning to a technique long used by farmers. It's not enough simply to strip off some of the city's ubiquitous pavement and plant grass. The ground beneath that asphalt and concrete often remains as hard and impervious as the man-made surface it's replacing. And the rainfall will just keep running off — washing fertilizer, pet waste, oil and other contaminants into storm drains and nearby streams.

With a Canton warehouse fire reduced to a smolder by Monday morning, attention shifted to ensuring that surrounding homes and the harbor's waters are protected from caustic chemicals inside the facility. State and federal environmental officials were on the site alongside firefighters into Monday evening, monitoring water streaming from the one-story brick structure into storm drains. The warehouse contains nearly 8,000 gallons of corrosive chemicals, according to the Maryland Department of the Environment.

A new movement is sweeping gutters across America. It is storm drain stenciling: Not exactly art, but more than just gutter-dressing.The message varies, but all messages are blunt. The stencils on my Seattle neighborhood gutters gracefully bracket the drain grate. "DUMP NO WASTE, DRAINS TO LAKE" they announce flatly. The silhouette of a fish (a guttersnipe? I know, I know. It's a salmon, of course) further adorns the drain.Every day, thousands of Americans -- lazy or ignorant -- pour icky stuff down storm drains.

Last month, there was a deluge of stories in The Baltimore Sun about cleaning up two of our region's most consistently polluted attractions: the Chesapeake Bay and Baltimore's Inner Harbor. Of course, the health of these two water bodies is inexorably linked - and not just to each other, but also to the health of our communities. When it rains, pollution and litter on our lawns and in our streets gets flushed into storm drains that empty into our streams, our harbor, and ultimately the bay. The Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore has just released the Healthy Harbor Plan to make our harbor safe for swimming and fishing by 2020.

Courtney Barrett says he became interested in cleaning up his west Baltimore neighborhood after watching a news report about the large amounts of trash that end up in the Chesapeake Bay because people illegally throw waste into storm drains."

A flammable chemical that mysteriously appeared in Inner Harbor sewers - and may have been the cause of a manhole cover explosion Aug. 11 - came from the CSX Corp. train that derailed and caught fire three weeks earlier, the state said yesterday. An independent laboratory has confirmed that the tripropylene found in underground storm drains matched that carried in one tanker of the 60-car freight train that derailed under Howard Street on July 18, according to the Department of the Environment.

THE PROBLEM: A West Baltimore storm drain is clogged. THE BACKSTORY: It's a sight you might only expect to see in Baltimore. In the 1400 block of Myrtle Ave., where it intersects with West Lafayette Street, several loops of crime scene tape trail from a street light pole into a storm drain blocked by trash. Crews from the Department of Public Works' Bureau of Water and Wastewater clean as many of the city's 33,000 storm drains as they can, but this falls squarely within homeowner or tenant responsibility, said spokesman Kurt Kocher.

The search for Joseph C. Palczynski focused yesterday on storm drains and wooded terrain in eastern Baltimore County, where police discovered clothing and bedding they say might have belonged to the fugitive. Palczynski eluded police for the sixth day, despite a search that involved a robot working underground, 20 dogs and dozens of officers who combed miles of parklands. County tactical officers brought in the robot about 6 p.m. yesterday to search a storm drain that begins near Eastern Boulevard and runs several hundred yards underground toward Carroll Island Road.

Heavy rains routinely trigger big sewage overflows in Baltimore, but there is growing evidence that chronic leaks from the region's aging, cracked sewer lines are a bigger threat to public health. Though storm-fed spills can be dramatic, Baltimore's' streams and harbor are also fouled on sunny days as storm drains yield grayish discharges that look and smell like sewage. That is what they are. Even the nearly $2 billion overhaul under way on the 3,100 miles of sewer lines in the city and Baltimore County won't be enough to make those waters safe, experts and activists say. Leaks allow raw sewage to seep into storm drain pipes, which funnel rain from streets, parking lots and buildings into nearby waterways.

Public works officials in the region are urging residents to remove snow from flat roofs and make sure storm drains are clear of debris. The warnings were issued in advance of possible heavy rain predicted for later this week. Anne Arundel County Executive John R. Leopold told residents that accumulated snow and heavy rain could cause roofs to collapse. Baltimore Public Works Director David Scott asked residents to clear storm drains in their neighborhoods to prevent flooding in streets and basements.

Heavy rains routinely trigger big sewage overflows in Baltimore, but there is growing evidence that chronic leaks from the region's aging, cracked sewer lines are a bigger threat to public health. Though storm-fed spills can be dramatic, Baltimore's' streams and harbor are also fouled on sunny days as storm drains yield grayish discharges that look and smell like sewage. That is what they are. Even the nearly $2 billion overhaul under way on the 3,100 miles of sewer lines in the city and Baltimore County won't be enough to make those waters safe, experts and activists say. Leaks allow raw sewage to seep into storm drain pipes, which funnel rain from streets, parking lots and buildings into nearby waterways.

Around 1,000 gallons of corn syrup escaped from a South Baltimore storage tank Friday night, and 300 gallons of the sticky substance wound up in the Inner Harbor before a leaking valve was plugged, fire officials say. The leak occurred at Westway Feed Products in Locust Point, said fire operation aide Kris Floyd. Fire officials originally reported the location as the nearby Domino Sugar factory. By 10:30 p.m. Friday, firefighters had set up blockades on Hull Street to keep the syrup from reaching storm drains, Cartwright said Friday night.

The Harford County Department of Public Works has reported an overflow of 263,000 gallons of raw, partially-treated sewage occurred during the height of Hurricane Irene last weekend. Some, if not all, of the discharge probably reached the nearby waters of Bush River, the county said Friday. But a county public works official also says the impact from the "torrential" rain from Irene late Saturday and early Sunday could have been a lot worse on the county's sewage collection system.

It was around dinnertime September 2003 when Hurricane Isabel wreaked havoc on the Chesapeake Bay, causing some of the worst flooding in 70 years. Waters reached up to eight feet above normal tides. Thousands had to be evacuated. Property damage reached over $400 million inMaryland alone. In its aftermath,Fells Point was devastated. "I was up fortysome hours going around the neighborhood helping people move stuff," said Ron Furman, owner of Max's Taphouse. "It was wild. A lot of work.

Most of the artwork that will be displayed Sunday on the grounds of a restored 18th-century mansion on Back River began as debris retrieved from that beleaguered waterway. Students from Maryland Institute College of Art and several Baltimore County schools gave a second life to detritus that volunteers have pulled from the river. The blend of recycling and creativity produced some truly abstract results that will be auctioned at the first Trash Art show at Ballestone-Stansbury House in Essex.

The problem: A temporarily patched hole in Lauraville grows larger as time passes. The back story: After at least six calls to 311 within five months about a hole that opened near a storm drain in the 2600 block of Goodwood Road, Anna L. Brown was fed up. A small gap appeared between the concrete alley and the road in the spring, and Brown saw it every day as she drove down the residential street leading out of her neighborhood....

Last month, there was a deluge of stories in The Baltimore Sun about cleaning up two of our region's most consistently polluted attractions: the Chesapeake Bay and Baltimore's Inner Harbor. Of course, the health of these two water bodies is inexorably linked - and not just to each other, but also to the health of our communities. When it rains, pollution and litter on our lawns and in our streets gets flushed into storm drains that empty into our streams, our harbor, and ultimately the bay. The Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore has just released the Healthy Harbor Plan to make our harbor safe for swimming and fishing by 2020.

RECENT, HUGE STORMS that swamped drainage systems in Baltimore and elsewhere illustrated two truths:Flooding can occur even in the midst of a drought.And storm drains aren't a good place to grow trees.Baltimore has more than 33,000 storm drains -- known as scuppers -- feeding into 1,000 miles of underground pipes. The city has 10 crews -- of four people each -- assigned to ensure the system is clear, according to the city's public works department. These crews are supposed to clean each scupper twice a year.

To be truly green, you have to get down and dirty, it seems. As Baltimore officials begin to tackle the polluted runoff fouling the harbor and the Chesapeake Bay, they are turning to a technique long used by farmers. It's not enough simply to strip off some of the city's ubiquitous pavement and plant grass. The ground beneath that asphalt and concrete often remains as hard and impervious as the man-made surface it's replacing. And the rainfall will just keep running off — washing fertilizer, pet waste, oil and other contaminants into storm drains and nearby streams.

The problem: A Cub Hill sidewalk remains unrepaired after a storm drain is fixed. The back story: Sometimes a simple problem has a simple solution. And sometimes, two arms of the same agency experience communication problems. About a year ago, a crew from Baltimore County's Department of Public Works repaired a storm drain near Diane Hopple's Cub Hill home. They had to tear up a sidewalk on Montreal Avenue near Erie Avenue to do the work. Members of the crew told Hopple that the other storm drains in the area were also made with inferior pipe and workers would return to fix them.