mrdj5150 said:
I know waste water is not supposed to go down a "storm drain" but what about a sewer drain?
Here's a partial quote from one of the Sacramento BMP sites Mark mentioned:
http://www.sactostormwater.org/industry.asp
"Pressure washing is an excellent way of removing pollutants from outdoor surfaces. Pressure washing wastewater should never be discharged to a storm drain, however! Storm drains should be covered, or the path to the drain should be blocked during pressure washing. With the property owner's permission, the collected wastewater can then be pumped into a sanitary sewer clean out..."
My understanding so far is that:
1)
storm sewers and storm drains are off limits... do everything we can to keep our water and dirt and anything else out of the storm drains (gutters at the curb by the sidewalk and such)
2)
sanitary sewers and drains on the other hand are able to handle water and soil in reasonable non hazordous amounts no problem. These are the drains such as our toilets and bathtubs and sinks.
I'm still working to understand "how much" grease for instance, and what kinds of cleaners are acceptable for sanitary sewers so I can plan appropriately for the restaurant vent cleaning business in California.
There are several names for the storm sewer systems, and other names for the sanitary sewer systems. I think it boils down to two major ideas:
* if the drain goes directly to our rivers, then don't put anything down it. These are storm drains, gutters in the street etc.
* if it's going to end up at a sewage treatment plant, then we can be more flexible. That's where everyone's regular day to day sewage goes anyway and if our wastewater can play well with their wastewater, cool. We still have to avoid dumping hazordous waste in these drains, but I'm not yet sure where they draw the line on hazordous or non hazordous.