Where Does the Water Go? Runoff, Storm Drains and Doing It Properly

Almost nobody asks this before hiring someone, and it is the question with the most regulation behind it.

Storm drains are not sewers

This is the part people get wrong. A storm drain is not treatment. In Northeast Florida it discharges, often with no treatment at all, into creeks, the Intracoastal and the St. Johns River. Whatever enters that grate ends up in the water.

Sanitary sewer is the treated system. They are separate, and only one of them is designed to receive anything dirty.

What that means in practice

For a normal residential house wash or driveway clean, the wash water is overwhelmingly water, and letting it soak into grass and landscaping is both normal and the preferred outcome. Soil filters it. That is the standard approach and it is what we do on nearly every residential job.

The rules tighten as the waste gets stronger.

• Grease and food waste from restaurant pads and drive thrus. Should be contained and disposed of properly, never sent to a storm drain.
• Oil and fuel from fleet yards, service bays and some parking structures.
• Paint, including scraped or chalked coatings from preparation work.
• Heavy sediment from large commercial lots, which smothers waterways even though it is only dirt.

Commercial work of that kind needs containment, recovery and correct disposal. It is slower and it costs more, and it is the single clearest difference between a legitimate commercial contractor and a cheap quote.

Why it is your problem, not just theirs

Enforcement in these cases commonly reaches the property owner, not only the contractor on site. If someone washes your plaza and pushes grease into a storm drain, the address on the notice is yours.

So the question to ask any commercial bidder is simply where the water is going. A real answer sounds specific. A vague one tells you what you need to know.

What we do

Residential work we direct to landscaping and let the soil do its job. Commercial work we assess first, and where the waste stream needs containment we price that in rather than leaving it out to look cheaper.

If you manage a property with grease, oil or heavy sediment, call us and we will tell you honestly what the job needs.