Here’s How to Deal With Runoff
* While I am grateful Orange County officials plan to divert urban runoff from several locations to a waste-water treatment plant, the fact is that a large source of the problem is not a mystery at all and needs to be addressed.
It is time to regulate discharges from restaurants and the pumping companies that service their grease traps. Excess grease and solids from poorly maintained traps are a leading cause of sewer blockages that lead to overflows.
The larger of these are reported to and mitigated by the appropriate agencies, but most are small and washed down to the gutters and storm drains before anyone notices.
At present it is the individual cities’ responsibility to monitor restaurant grease traps. With a few exceptions, monitoring and enforcement by cities is lacking. Some cities in the county don’t even require the installation of grease traps by restaurants.
Treating storm drain runoff at the end of the pipe without eliminating industrial discharges upstream means the citizens of Orange County are subsidizing that industry by treating their waste.
ROB ISLANDER
Los Alamitos
* You failed to report a proven alternative to diversion to sewer plants.
Constructed wetlands with aquaculture along the route to the ocean in open spaces, parks, refuges, reserves, military bases and on public lands will accomplish the purification of waste-water runoff and clean smoggy areas at least cost.
And the cleanup will be permanent.
BRUCE MONROE
Seal Beach
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