Operation Clean Sewers

Hi! My name is Adela Kusinski and my Silver Award Project for Girl Scouts is called Operation Clean Sewers. In our community, flash flooding is pretty common during the hurricane season. Although flash flooding occurs on its own, our actions can help or hinder the drainage process. After recognizing that we can all make an impact on this issue, I began to get to work! Three of the major problems I recognized were newspapers, leaves, and littering. 

Newspapers: When we leave our newspapers on our lawns, they can be swept into the street by rain, wind, etc. and cause the sewer to be blocked and unable to drain. 

Leaves: Although blowing leaves into the street is the easiest way to get rid of them, the only place to go after that are the sewers. This leaves them clogged and it’s harder for the water to drain. 

Littering: Leaving trash and debris in the streets can clog the sewers. This blocks the storm drains, leading to flash flooding happening faster.

Fortunately, there are many ways we can help. 

Pick up trash and newspapers. Not only will you be helping the environment, you will also be helping the storm drains. This is an easy and simple task to complete. 

Bag up your leaves. You can find brown bags at Home Depot. This is usually the only type of bag your city will pick up. 

Telling your neighbor is an easy way to spread the information. It’s simple and can make a big difference.

Helping to keep our community safe is vital for all of us. Not only does it help us, but it also helps the environment around us be safe too. Although the results may not be shown in the short term, in the long run we will see how our streets are cleaner, and the severity of storms may lessen due to our actions. So next time you think about littering or see a piece of trash on the ground, you should throw it away. It could really help our community.

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