Clean water is one of the most important things in Florida. The city of St. Cloud, Florida is one city that if not protected, could potentially lead to putting clean water sources at risk. Luckily the local city government is very proactive in protecting its water. When the citizens of a place take care of their fresh water sources it leads to a very sustainable future.Every community needs good sources of clean water to happily live and work in a community.
The City of St. Cloud, Florida has been on top of maintaining public drainage systems and stormwater runoff pollution since 1972. According to www.stcloud.org FAQs,
“…authorized by the Clean Water Act of 1972, the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) program controls water pollution by regulating point sources that discharge pollutants into waters of the United States.”
NPDES is a federal mandate that forces the city to, “maintain the public drainage system, provide public education, monitor construction sites and train our staff to help reduce the amount of pollutants entering our drainage system.” These proactive measures have laid important groundwork for the future of sustainability.
Progress shown by the government is one of the best ways to insure sustainability. Through federal and state mandates communities must maintain their freshwater sources. Specifically in St. Cloud city government is expected to maintain all drainage systems in the city. On top of managing drainage through NPDES government officials must educate the public, and oversee big businesses and construction projects.
Freshwater pollution can be caused by many things. One of the main causes of freshwater pollution is runoff. Runoff is when chemicals and pollutants are carried to fresh bodies of water by rain irrigation systems. As we develop areas more and more and add ways to get rid of rain water, we take away the ground that once absorbed the rain, and leave concrete in its place. This concrete leaves chemicals on the surface that are easily carried away by the rain.
There are ways to cut down on pollution caused by runoff. If citizens in a place are proactive in taking the necessary steps to cut down on this pollution the community around it may begin to see an immediate impact. According to the city of St. Cloud website Some things people can do are:
- Recycle yard debris instead of dumping it near streams.
- Put litter in trash cans where it belongs.
- Recycle used motor oil and antifreeze.
- When washing your car, use non-phosphorus soaps or direct soap suds onto the lawn instead of storm drains.
- Be careful not to destroy stream banks because it can cause soil to wash away.
- Keep livestock and pets from destroying our creek banks and using the stream as a toilet.
One major cause of freshwater pollution is illegal dumping. Illegal dumping is the practice of disposing solid waste in any place that it is not designated for disposal. Often times things dumped illegally can quickly lead to environmental pollution. This can be very detrimental to the future of sustainability for a city, so it is important to solve these problems early on.
images courtesy of: stcloud.org
