My name is Kevin Osbey. I am the storm water program director here at Clayton County Water
Authority. Storm water is essentially just like it sounds. It's really rain water that falls from
the sky during a storm event. Most of this rain water can soak into the ground through grasses
or forests. But in a lot of areas where we have development we have a lot of more hard surfaces
such as roadways, parking lots, sidewalks, homes buildings. In those cases, water can't soak into
the ground. That tends to run off. So essentially any of that runoff is considered storm water
runoff. In most of the cases if you are in an urban area, it will go to a catch basin. The catch
basin is a roadside collection device that catches storm water runoff. From there it takes the water
underneath the ground surface and goes through a series of storm drain lines. Storm drain lines can
go along roadways, off the roadways, onto private properties, back into ditches that eventually will
flow to either a creek, spring, tributary, or a lake. Or if you're on the coast directly to the
ocean. You pull behind someone in a car and they take an ash tray and dump it out the side of their
window, that's hitting the street. Well all of that trash will eventually make its way to a catch
basin and into our storm drain systems and right on out to our creeks or rivers or lakes. If you
have a lot of debris and sediment and trash built up, that water won't be able to flow naturally
through the storm drain. It can back up at the roadway or it can back up on someone's property
and cause flooding damage. And flooding can cause all kinds of other unintended consequences. For
instance, if a house is flooded water can get into that house. It can dampen the floors. It can
dampen all the walls and cause mold and mildew and other health problems for that resident.
Well it is important to keep the storm drains clear of anything that isn't supposed to be in
there because we need water, we drink water, we use water to cook, we use water to take a
shower or bath. And you don't want that to get in a storm drain because what it does it can pollute
the water. And I'm pretty sure when you get home, you know at the end of the day you want to turn
your your water on and drink some water. So it's always best to keep that storm drain clean so that
we can have a clean water. Well the way kids can help take care of the environment is not to throw
trash outside or you know, just litter. You can't just throw anything outside. And they can also
educate their parents and let them know when you go in the morning and don't take that wrapper and
just throw out the window because it will end up in the storm drain. Some of the items we found
in the storm drain are tires, rims, bicycles, different things from people's homes, trash.
It's very important to dispose materials because the materials could end up on the ground and the
rain could push into a storm drain and eventually could cause the storm drain to back up or flood.
Vacuum truck, basically it is a vacuum on wheels but it's a high pressure vacuum. It's designed to
suck up debris, mud, and different objects that we find in storm drains. Also it has a high pressure
water hose on it that helps us to move those debris in position so that we can suck them up.
Once we suck up the material or debris in the back truck,
it goes to the tank where we travel to our site where we have a pit where we dump all the solids
that separate from the water that we're able to scoop them up. Then we take them to a landfill.
One of the favorite parts about my job is to be able to see
happy customers. Just last week we had a major rain and one customer was flooded pretty bad
and she was so relieved to see us come out and clean the pipe to get the water from her yard.
Oh what do I love about my job? What do I really love about my job is just helping the community.
you