A way to help the Bay

Maybe you haven’t noticed the saucer-shaped, blue medallions stuck on storm drains along some of  Fredericksburg’s streets. Jim Hall, one of my colleagues who runs in the city, mentioned them to me.  He spotted some along Kenmore  Avenue and Sunken Road.  The lettering reads “No dumping”  at the top and ” Drains to the Bay”  along the bottom, separated by an image  of a blue crab.

Turns out, it’s an environmental initiative by the Tri-County/City Soil and Water Conservation District to keep chemicals, vehicle fluids and other  substances harmful to marine life, out of the Chesapeake Bay. It started a few months ago. The district is sponsoring  a stormwater drain-marking project this weekend in  College Heights and  along Fall Hill Avenue. For more information on that, click here.

Blue medallions, top left, aim to remind people not to dump toxic materials in Fredericksburg's storm drains.

 ”Eventually, we want to get them [on drains] throughout the city,” Kevin Utt,  Fredericksburg’s site development manager who oversees the city’s environmental programs, told me.  The idea is that anyone thinking of dumping, say, paint, household chemicals or used motorl oil down one of the storm drains, might reconsider after seeing the medallion. By the way, it’s illegal to dump anything but stormwater down the drains.

Permalink: http://news.fredericksburg.com/waterearthsky/2011/05/16/1266445217/