Addressing Non-Point Source Pollution

Pollution and Prevention In a multi-pronged approach, communities can institute public education pollution prevention programs that include publicly maintained depositories for collecting hazardous waste. Public education is crucial to reducing nonpoint source pollution (NPS) through the use of strategies that reduce pollution in water and in the soil. Nonpoint source pollution occurs when rainwater or snowmelt picks up natural and man-made pollutants from diverse sources and eventually deposits those pollutants into coastal waters, ground waters, lakes, rivers, steams, and wetlands.

When people are ignorant of the collective impact of their behaviors and habits, they are not equipped to take positive action to reduce pollution and protect the environment. Although the amount of pollutants may seem small, the collective amount of chemicals and other pollutants that is picked up and carried through storm drains to surface waters can be huge. When casual disposal of chemicals and pollutants into storm drains occurs at high rates, the outcomes are closures of beaches and lakes, endangered wildlife, and polluted drinking water.

The EPA suggests the following practices in order to reduce nonpoint source pollution. Use non-toxic substitutes for household chemicals whenever possible. Buy limited quantities -- only what you anticipate using -- and dispose of unneeded chemicals and pesticides in hazardous-waste collection centers. Never pour unwanted household chemicals down the drain or on the ground. Soil does not purify most chemicals, which is a primary reason inappropriately discarded chemicals contaminate rainwater and snowmelt runoff. Select water-based products and use phosphate-free detergents.

Properly maintain septic systems through annual inspections and pump-outs every three to five years, by avoiding the use of garbage disposals, by not using septic system additives, and by keeping trash out of toilets. 2. Ban plastic shopping bags by putting pressure on retail establishments, corporations, and government. While it is important for individual shoppers to carry purchased good home in reusable bags, all plastic shopping bags need to be eliminated from consumer patterns in order to impact the environment to a meaningful degree.

Soil and water pollution is reduced when shopping bags do not find their way into bodies of water, or languish for years in dumpsites, or adversely impact fish and animals through ingestion or entrapment. Moreover, air pollution is substantially reduced as the demand for manufactured plastic bags diminishes. 3. Ban or upgrade diesel-burning trucks serving large ports that were built before 1994.

This activity reduces pollution at the ports and communities that are close to transit roads, and it also reduces water pollution since the diesel exhaust settles on the hard surface roads and parking lots -- where the exhaust particles are susceptible to nonpoint source pollution -- and on the waters of the port while trucks idle in cargo unloading lines. The Port of Seattle helped truck drivers upgrade their old rigs by giving them either a $5,000 incentive or the an amount equal to the blue book value of their trucks.

New rigs can run upwards of $100,000, which means that costs are still borne by the truck drivers / owners or their companies. The total number of trucks registered at the port at the time of the incentive program was roughly 8,000, so getting the 276 trucks impacted by the program off the road was helpful but insufficient.

At the ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach (which happen to be the largest cargo ports in the country), all trucks servicing the ports are mandates to have 2007 or newer engines or to be retrofitted to be as clean as.