Stormwater Pollution

I am in the Architecture pathway at John A. Dubiski Career High School and this industry goes hand and hand with engineering. There are many issues within this growing industry, but the main problem they are both enduring is the growing pollution problem. Pollution is primarily caused by the construction of many man-made infrastructures such as buildings, sidewalks, and parking lots. This is because when it rains the water that runs along the surface of the pavement carries toxins and deposits them into our streams.

In order to help aid this growing issue, I propose we take another look at creating awareness for stormwater pollution and create an attraction that would benefit this cause.

To begin with, the reason this issue was brought to my attention was the countless times I witnessed tremendous amounts of garbage being dumped into our creeks which have over time reflected how humans’ careless actions have caused our environment to become polluted. The issue that we have to confront is runoff water, “Stormwater runoff can contain nitrogen and phosphorus pollutants from fertilizers and pet and yard waste” (Environmental Protection Agency). Stormwater is being caused because we have an abundance of impervious surfaces in cities. When we have heavy rainfall, the water runs along the surface until it is deposited into a large body of water. Normally in natural terrain, the water is absorbed into the soil and naturally, will filter out. (EPA) The conflict arises when such chemicals and debris get into our water system. We have the sewer system in place which will take in all of this runoff water, but it can only hold so much water until it eventually, dumps all the water that is not filtered out (EPA). It begins to pollute the water quality and impacts micro- life, such as microorganisms living in the water like plankton and algae, which in turn, affects the whole ecosystem (National Geographic). Though it may not seem like a big deal at first but once you begin to destroy the small things in our ecosystem it will end up collapsing. This being said, it is the utmost important thing that we should address this issue and take action.

I propose that we promote the use of pervious concrete so that the water will be absorbed through and reduce the amount of runoff water we collect in our body of waters. “Instead of the usual asphalt concrete…, pervious concrete can withhold five gallons of water a minute. “(Parks Smart) This will not be enough to prevent all of the stormwater from getting into our water and pollute it. So, to coincide with this idea, creating a fountain that its primary function is to collect the rest of the runoff water and slowly deposit the water into the soil nearby. This could be optimized by creating something like a water show that could be an attraction for people to look at and take pictures. Thus, creating a positive image for this solution. Furthermore, we can take advantage of people’s attention and inform them of this current issue. The more the people are educated the better they will know how to prevent this from causing storm runoffs. It will help me generate more awareness and could start to raise funds to create more fountains and attractions. This would ultimately affect the people that live around the area between these fountain locations because it will create more traffic and would make their lives troublesome in trying to get where they want to go. Also, creating these fountains could obstruct the natural environment. A possible solution would be to create these fountains in already paved areas.

In my pathway, over almost four years, I have learned to use certain programs such as Sketch-Up and AutoCad to create my designs in the way I envision them. In architecture, there is a certain rule that you have to follow, which is “form follows function”. Using that, I will be able to create an efficient parking lot with pervious concrete, as well as having a small drainage system that connects to a nearby fountain modified to have a little water work show. I could use my extensive knowledge in designing eye-catching waterworks. Utilizing things that I have learned from visiting the engineering pathway such as, knowing the logistics of how a fountain works. They first started using gravity to make the fountain work and have water come out of it. This will be useful to start out in making the fountains with a limited amount of resources but for the more intricate fountains with all the fancy waterworks, we would have to use mechanical pumps to spur out the water into a different array of patterns and shapes.

Through my proposal of creating a fountain/waterworks, we will be able to create awareness to prevent the storm runoff, as well as helping the sewage system from getting overwhelmed when there is a large quantity of water. As a community, we have to protect our environment because it is the only one, we have. We can’t be careless and only think about how it affects us right now but also think about the future generations that will have to deal with this same problem. So, it’s time to take matters into our own hands. 

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