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Catch Basin / Storm drain cleaning
Our team cleans approx 10,000 CB structures annually. We offer hourly, daily, and weekly rates as well as long term per unit pricing to better help your agency with yearly budgets.
Copied from EPA BMP’s
Stormwater is the water from rain, snow and sleet that travels down our gutters into the storm drain. Stormwater starts off clean. Stormwater flows DIRECTLY into our rivers, lakes and streams. It is almost never treated. So everything stormwater collects from the land surface, roadways, sidewalks, parking lots, construction sites, business parks, etc., is carried to gutters, stormdrains, canals, drainageways, and finally ends up in our local rivers and streams ~ UNTREATED! It is estimated that more than one-half of the pollution in our nation’s waterways comes from stormwater runoff.
In the past, it was thought that water pollution was caused mainly by industrial and municipal wastewater treatment plant discharges. A lot of effort was put into cleaning up these “point sources” of waste water. Now, the effort is being expended to clean up “non-point source” pollution, water pollution that is generated all over and carried to rivers and streams in pipes and ditches. The problem with non-point source pollution is that it is very expensive to treat and discharge. Treatment facilities would have to be very large to treat storm peak flows and would sit unused more that 95% of the time. The best way to improve stormwater quality is to treat the source – don’t let runoff get polluted in the first place. These methods are called Best Management Practices (BMPs).
-EPA 2004
Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4)
A conveyance or system of conveyances (including roads with drainage systems, municipal streets, catch basins, curbs, gutters, ditches, manmade channels, or storm drains) owned by a state, city, town or other public body, that is designed or used for collecting or conveying storm water, which is not a combined sewer, and which is not part of a publicly owned treatment works. Commonly referred to as an "MS4" [40 CFR 122.26(b)(8)].
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Clean Water Act (CWA)
The Clean Water Act is an act passed by the U.S. Congress to control water pollution. It was formerly referred to as the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972 or Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 (Public Law 92-500), 33 U.S.C. 1251 et. seq., as amended by: Public Law 96-483; Public Law 97-117; Public Laws 95-217, 97-117, 97-440, and 100-04. |
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Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO)
A discharge of untreated wastewater from a combined sewer system at a point prior to the headworks of a publicly owned treatment works. CSOs generally occur during wet weather (rainfall or snowmelt). During periods of wet weather, these systems become overloaded, bypass treatment works, and discharge directly to receiving waters. |
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Combined Sewer System (CSS)
A wastewater collection system which conveys sanitary wastewaters (domestic, commercial and industrial wastewaters) and storm water through a single pipe to a publicly owned treatment works for treatment prior to discharge to surface waters. |
  
 
Stenciling with the "Think Blue Maine" project in Livermore Falls Maine September 2006
learn more at www.thinkbluemaine.org
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