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Stormwater Overview
Stormwater management is now an integral part of our interaction with our environment. As students, faculty and staff, our most common daily activities can have an
unhealthy impact on Virginia's waterways. Every time that it rains, everything we leave on the streets, parking lots and lawns washes through our ditches and storm drains
into our streams, rivers, lakes and other waterways. What the rain washes away (known as stormwater runoff) can picks up chemicals, dirt, debris and other pollutants that
flow in the College's storm sewer system.
Polluted stormwater runoff effects the environment we live in through the following pathways:
- Sediment - sediment clouds the water and makes it difficult or impossible for aquatic plants to grow.
- Excess Nutrients - excess nutrients can cause algae blooms which depletes oxygen in the water.
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- Bacteria (and other pathogens) - bacteria and other harmful microorganisms can wash into swimming areas and create health hazards, often resulting in beach closures.
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- Debris - debris such as plastic bags, bottle, cigarette butts that are washed into bodies of water can choke, suffocate or disable aquatic life.
- Hazardous Waste - hazardous waste such as insecticides, pesticides, motor oil and anti-freeze can poison aquatic life. Land animals and people can become sick from eating
diseased fish and shellfish or ingesting polluted water.
For developed areas, like NVCC's campuses, natural conditions are changed by creating large areas of impermeable surfaces, such as roads,
buildings, and parking lots. The water that normally would infiltrate into the ground from the impervious areas runs off and enters storm sewers, streams or other surface waterbodies.
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If we are not mindful of what we leave behind on pervious (i.e. lawns, meadows and woodlands) and impervious surfaces, pollutants such as automobile oil, grease, sediment from construction sites, bacteria from animal waste, excess lawn care fertilizers and pesticides will be discharged into our storm sewer system and the waterbodies we use for drinking water, swimming and fishing.
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