The situation does vary geographically, even locally.

Here in Maine, we have a lot of combined sewer and storm drains.
There are sills so that everything goes to the sewer plant until there
is a heavy rain. Then, the flow overtops the sills and goes into the
bay. We also have a lot of direct storm drains that are slowly being
phased out. The "Friends of Casco Bay" had a program to go around and
stencil little lobster emblems with the note "Drains directly to the
bay" on them so people would know not to dump especially noxious stuff
down them.

One of the local sewer districts wanted to know how often the sills
were overflowing and sending everything into the bay so they did
something simple and clever. The went in and just set blocks of wood
on top of the sills. If they looked after a rain, they would have the
answer.

Back when on was on the board of FOCB, they told me how much oil goes
into the bay daily just from street runoff. I calculated the volume
thinking that a visual display of a mock up black painted box would be
great public education. This is a small city and most of the bay is
rural and suburban. We never did the box thing because we couldn't
figure out how to transport it. I've forgotten exactly how big it was
but I think it was over 10 feet square. That works out to being a
significant oil spill 365 days a year. It's just so distributed that
the effects are invisible.

Up here in Maine, it would not be a good idea to sump your holding
tank anywhere not marked specifically for human waste.

--

Roger Long



"Keith" wrote in message
oups.com...
She was saying it would be OK to dump it in a sewer, NOT a storm
drain.
Go back and actually read the posts, Mark.