Storm Drain Marker to help reduce illegal dumping into the drains

The City of Santa Fe Storm Water Management Division is working to comply with EPA’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES). The Storm Water Management office has developed, implemented and enforces a program to detect and eliminate illicit discharges. Our Illicit Discharge Detection & Elimination (IDDE) Storm Water Management plan includes the following components.

If Storm Water Management is contacted regarding a dry weather flow (wet flow without rain or snow melt), this is an indicator of a possible illicit connection to our storm sewer system. The simplest method for detecting non-storm water connections in the storm water collection system is to observe all discharge points during periods of dry weather. For example no rain has fallen for a period of time; there should be no wet discharges from our outfalls.

Identifying and eliminating non-storm water discharges to the storm sewers is an important and very cost-effective Best Management Practice (BMP) for improving runoff water quality.

Non-storm water discharges or illegal connections to the Storm Water System can include:

These are typically the result of unauthorized connections of sanitary or process wastewater drains to storm sewers. These connections are common, yet often undetected.

Storm Water Mgmt Ordinance