Awards recently presented to businesses which had demonstrated excellence in their attitude and actions in regard to stormwater reinforced the importance of community responsibility for stormwater health.
In early November this year, the Christchurch West Melton Water Zone Committee of Environment Canterbury hosted the 2023 Stormwater Superhero Awards for businesses. Five companies, covering a range of endeavours, were recognised for their positive attitude towards ensuring that stormwater leaving their premises was not contaminated. You can read about the enterprises and awards here. The award winners are worth naming in this article so that you can support them if you can as commercial leaders in the stormwater space: Cleanco Truck Wash, Oji Fibre Solutions, Resource Recycling Technologies, IAG NZ Repairhub Ltd and Redmund Spur Ltd.
In introducing the Awards at the presentation event, the Chair of the Christchurch West Melton Water Zone Committee, Annabelle Hasselman, provided some sobering statistics from Environment Canterbury about contaminants entering Christchurch waterways.
Click to enlarge. Estimated total of contaminants entering all Christchurch waterways in a year,. Source: ECan.
Copper Each Spring, we spray minute quantities of copper compounds on fruit trees to kill bacteria and bugs. Imagine the overall toxicity of 4.5tonnes of copper entering the city’s waterways each year, largely from the copper dust from vehicle brake pads.
Zinc Similarly, zinc compounds are toxic to macrobiotic life in waterways, and yet something near 31 tonnes of zinc are annually contaminating our waterways as the result of two continuing sources: zinc oxide used as a hardening agent in tyres, and from roofs, particularly those of large commercial buildings.
One company approached as part of the promotion of the Stormwater Superhero Awards admitted that it had spent more than $6000 investigating the source of its contaminated stormwater only to find that almost all of that contamination was coming from their roof! Unpainted zinc and ZINCALUME® roofing is the most common roofing material on commercial buildings…but it comes at a cost to the environment if runoff from roofs is not treated before entering waterways. Painting, or re-painting, the roof would prevent most of this contamination.
The Public Health of Stormwater A good analogy paints a thousand words, as they say, or words to that effect. Peter Christiansen, Stormwater Group Chair – Water New Zealand and guest speaker at the 2023 Stormwater Superhero Awards ceremony made an excellent comparison between the way the health system works and the way stormwater needs to work within communities.
Simplistically, Health can be divided between Community and Public Health on one hand and the rest of the health system on the other. It is a very similar division for stormwater where there is a significant amount that falls to individuals and families within communities to help keep stormwater healthy. See the diagram below.
Community & Public Health
What citizens do individually, as families and collectively to stay healthy – good health practices like:
- washing hands
- cleaning teeth
- wearing a mask
- staying home if sick
- getting vaccinated
- keeping warm
- eating healthy food
- washing regularly, etc
Health System
Primary, secondary and tertiary health organisations including
- surgeons
- doctors
- nurses
- blood banks
- clinic
- hospitals
- birthing units etc
…is equivalent to…
Community & Public Stormwater
What citizens do individually, as families and collectively to keep stormwater healthy and uncontaminated:
- painting your house’s roof
- picking up your dog’s poo
- washing your car so that runoff does not flow into stormwater
- keeping your stormwater out of your wastewater system
- picking up litter especially plastic to keep it out of waterways
- preventing erosion of soil from your property, etc
This is where companies can make a big difference by ensuring that their activities do not contaminate the stormwater leaving their premises.
Stormwater System
The drains, gutters, pipes, filters and streams provided/maintained by the Council that take stormwater from our properties and roads to the sea.
Industry, whether heavy or light, will always be more likely to cause contamination of stormwater due to the size of buildings and the wholesale quantity of products that are on site. Companies which take a keen interest in the quality of the stormwater coming off their premises can make a big difference to the quality of surface water entering the Ōpāwaho Heathcote River. It is not a co-incidence that the worst water quality is annually measured in Haytons Stream and Curletts Stream, both waterways that take surface water from industrial suburbs.
The companies that have won Stormwater Superhero awards this year have set an excellent standard for others to aspire to.
