Humboldt Bay Starts On Your Street
What can we do to prevent pollution in our creeks and Humboldt Bay?
Even though you may live miles from Humboldt Bay, you may be polluting bay waters without knowing it. Day after day, motor oil, paints, and household and garden chemicals are washed into neighborhood street gutters. These pollutants are carried by rain into the storm drain system that empties into local creeks and sloughs.
On a rainy day in Humboldt County, have you ever wondered what happens to:
- motor oil and gas on your driveway, in parking lots, or on roads?
- antifreeze drained into the street gutter?
- fertilizers and pesticides on your lawn and garden?
- bare soil on the hillside?
These are just some of the pollutants that mix with water and flow through the storm drain system that runs beneath our streets. Storm drain water flows directly into our creeks and Humboldt Bay without treatment.
Did you know that dumping one quart of motor oil down a storm drain contaminates a quarter of a million gallons of water?
Before you pour anything into the street, gutter, or down the storm drain, stop and think!
Storm drains flow directly into creeks and through sloughs and marshes into Humboldt Bay.
Humboldt Bay is the second largest estuary in California and the most ecologically diverse coastal embayment on the U.S. west coast. It provides habitat for hundreds of thousands of migratory water birds. It is home to more than 100 fish species and 350 invertebrate animal species - many of which are commercially valuable and dependent on the Bay for spawning and rearing habitat.
Runoff from the storm drains can have a significant impact on the water quality of the Bay. During the rainy season, large amounts of pollutants flow into the Bay, depositing toxins and sediments. These pollutants build up, continually degrading its water quality. Polluted storm drain runoff presents an ongoing hazard for the fish, birds, and other wildlife living in and around the Bay and for all who use and enjoy it. Continued
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