Tip #1: Hire Responsible Companies

Ensure that home maintenance contractors, such as carpet cleaners and painters, dispose of materials properly, not in a gutter, storm drain, or roadside ditch.

Tip #2: Sweep, Instead of Hosing Your Driveway

Sweep up debris like litter and leaves and dispose of it in your garbage cart or bin. This will keep gutters unclogged and prevent residue from automotive fluids or other pollutants from getting washed into storm drains.

Tip #3: Pick Up After Your Dog

Pet feces contains high concentrations of bacteria, parasites, and viruses. When rain and sprinkler water washes pet feces into storm drains, these pathogens end up in lakes and creeks, posing a health risk to humans and wildlife. Pick up animal waste and dispose of it in your garbage cart or bin.

Tip #4: Install a Rainwater Capture System

Landscape designs featuring rainwater capture systems retain water during storms, then slowly release the water over time. These systems conserve water and reduce flooding, stormwater pollution, and erosion, while protecting our local creeks and the Bay. Learn more about rainwater capture systems

Tip #5: Pour Wash Water Down the Sink

Never pour wash water into storm drains. Always use a sink or floor drain connected to the sewer system. If this is not possible—for example, when rinsing out a garbage can—pour the wash water onto a lawn where it can trickle into the ground.

Tip #6: Use Less-Toxic Pest Management

When too much fertilizer or pesticides is used on landscaping, it can run off into storm drains, polluting our local creeks and eventually the San Francisco Bay. This can be prevented by following the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) approach to landscape maintenance. Visit Our Water, Our World and the Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program websites to learn more about IPM.

Cars are a necessity—and often a passion. However, they are also among the main sources of water pollution in the Bay Area. This is because leaking fluids like motor oil, debris from tire and brake pad wear, particles from exhaust, and other contaminants end up on our roads, where they are washed into storm drains that lead directly to our waterways. Here is what you can do to reduce automotive stormwater pollution:

Tip #1: Use Commercial Car Washes

When you wash your car on the street or in your driveway, all that dirty, grimy, soapy water runs down the storm drain and into creeks and the San Francisco Bay. Even biodegradable soap is harmful. Taking your car to a commercial or coin operated self-service car wash helps because all wash water is recycled and properly disposed.

Tip #2: Prevent Leaks & Clean-up Spills with Care

Do not use water to clean up spilled auto fluids like motor oil or transmission fluid. Instead, clean them up with rags or absorbents like kitty litter. Dispose of the absorbents promptly at the Livermore Household Hazardous Waste Facility.

Tip #3: Dispose of Auto Fluids & Materials Properly

If you change your own oil, be sure to recycle the used oil and filter through Livermore Sanitation’s curbside pickup service or at a certified used oil collection center. Dispose of any other automotive fluids at the Livermore Household Hazardous Waste Facility.

The State of California Water Quality Control Board has required all San Francisco Bay Area cities and counties to reduce the amount of trash going into the San Francisco Bay by 100% by 2022.

The City of Livermore is proactively working to meet this trash reduction goal by banning plastic bags at most retailers, banning plastic foam packaging (e.g., Styrofoam) at restaurants, increasing street sweeping, and installing storm drain trash capture devices. Here is what you can do to help us meet our goal:

Report Litterbugs and Illegal Dumping

If you see litter being tossed out of a car, write down the license plate number and call the Livermore Police Department’s Litterbug Hotline at (925) 371-4766. 

If you see large items that have been illegally dumped in Livermore such as furniture, construction debris, or appliances, contact the City of Livermore Neighborhood Preservation Division so they can be removed.

Volunteer at a Creek Clean-Up

Since 2012, the Tri-Valley Adopt a Creek Spot program has promoted healthy creeks through hosting year-round litter clean-ups and the annual Tri-Valley Creeks to Bay Clean-Up event each September. Adopters of the program’s 13 creek spots have removed over 40,000 gallons of litter from local waterways since the program began.

Only rainwater should go down storm drains. If you see anything else being dumped or washed into the street or storm drain, help protect our creeks by reporting it. Call (925) 960-8100 immediately to report any dumping of hazardous materials like motor oil, gasoline, or paint into or near the storm drain. Here is what you can do with your unwanted medications and hazardous waste instead:

How to Dispose of Unwanted Medicine & Prescription Drugs

Wastewater treatment plants are not designed to remove man-made pollutants like medications, allowing them pass through untreated. Protect our water quality by dropping off your unwanted or expired medications and needles/sharps at one of Livermore’s medication drop boxes.

How to Dispose of Household Hazardous Waste

Paint, pesticides, cleaners, and chemicals should not be poured down storm drains or household drains or put in garbage carts. Livermore Sanitation offers curbside pickup for used motor oil.

All other household hazardous waste can be dropped off free of charge at the Livermore Household Hazardous Waste Facility. Additional drop-off sites for paint and varnish are also available on the PaintCare website.

When pools are drained into streets, the water flows into storm drains and then straight to local creeks and the San Francisco Bay. It does not go to a wastewater treatment plant first.

Water from pools, spas and fountains contain chemicals harmful to fish and aquatic plants living and growing in our watersheds, creeks and Bay. Help contribute to preserving a healthy watershed by using these recommended practices to maintain your pools, spas and fountains.

How to Properly Drain a Pool, Spa, or Fountain

Drain pool, spa or fountain water to a sewer cleanout. Do not drain the water into a street, gutter or storm drain. Draining water that contains copper algaecide or residual chlorine to a storm drain is prohibited. 

If you need assistance locating your sewer cleanout, contact the City of Livermore Water Resources Division at (925) 960-8100. 

General Pool Maintenance Tips

• Keep your pool, spa or fountain well-maintained with a balanced pH to reduce the need for chemicals or drainage.
  
  
• Avoid using copper based algaecides. Ask your pool maintenance service or store for help resolving persistent algae problems without using copper algaecides.
  
  
• Select pool products with reduced phosphate. Without phosphate, algae cannot thrive.
  
  
• Never clean filters in the street, gutter or storm drain. If you need to clean your pool filters, rinse over landscaped areas. Fresh water will dilute the chlorine so it won’t harm plants or grass.
  
  
• Clean sand and diatomaceous earth filters onto a dirt area. Keep backwash out of the street and storm drain. Dispose of spent filter materials in the trash.

Did You Know…?

• Chlorine is an effective sterilizer that kills bacteria in pool water. Chlorinated water similarly kills sensitive fish and animals essential to healthy creeks and watersheds.
  
  
• Copper is used to destroy algae in pools, spas and fountains. When copper-treated water enters our creeks and waterways it has a similar effect on the plants and organisms in these environments. Copper additives are highly toxic to most aquatic species even in small amounts.
  
  
• Most wastewater treatment plants can remove some, but not all copper. It is essential to reduce or eliminate the use of copper in pools, spas and fountains to protect our waterways.
  
  
• Phosphate is an effective plant nutrient that promotes algae growth in creeks. Algae blooms in creeks reduce the amount of oxygen in the water and cause warming of creeks to levels that damage fish and plant life dependent upon a clean water to survive.