Is this illegal?

[bobobb.livejournal.com]

I was walking in the Davis Square area and saw a man from a industrial cleaning company dumping his cleaning waste down the street sewer from his van -- it was pretty stinky.  I'm assuming this is illegal because when he saw me he packed up his truck and took off in a hurry.   When I looked on the city's web page I couldn't find anything about illegal dumping, so maybe I'm wrong.  I assumed that the street sewers go into the mystic river -- is this true?  Please fill me in.  I have his licence plate number so I'll report it if in fact it is illegal dumping -- but again who do you report this to?

Comments

[ron_newman]

Please do report it, that's very illegal.

[fanw.livejournal.com]

I don't know, but I'd call 311 and find out who to report this to. Sounds pretty sketchy to me!

[srakkt.livejournal.com]

Call 311 and report it? Did you get the name of the company and maybe the number of the truck?

If it's not illegal then it's hardly an issue, and the folks at 311 will know. if it is illegal, then you're getting it handled.

[beezy515.livejournal.com]

Yes, please report this.

[bobobb.livejournal.com]

Called it in -- apparently it is very illegal. Thanks for the help!

PS The company was called Serv Pro -- maybe don't hire them if you need your house/business cleaned?

[ruthling.livejournal.com]

Thank you for reporting this. Yes, storm sewers discharge, usually completely untreated, into a local waterbody. The Mystic has enough problems and doesn't need random guys throwing anything from soap to industrial waste down into it.

[ron_newman]

And yes, anything dumped in a Somerville storm sewer is eventually going to end up in the Mystic River, or in Alewife Brook, which drains into the Mystic. It's bad enough when the stuff being dumped is just dogshit, but even worse if it's some industrial chemical.

[jspazzer.livejournal.com]

Appropriately, their slogan appears to be "Like it never even happened"
http://www.servpro.com/

[spaz-i-mota.livejournal.com]

ServPro is a huge company. I'm not sure why that makes it more disturbing to me, but it does.

[islandofzilan.livejournal.com]

how do you know what was being dumped was an industrial solvent?

There are alot of natural solvents that can smell pretty bad too...

[firepail.livejournal.com]

Even more disturbing, if this person was doing this blatantly in broad daylight--they have probably done it before.

[ron_newman]

Then they probably shouldn't be dumped into the storm sewer either.

[srakkt.livejournal.com]

At no point did the OP assert that what was being dumped was an industrial solvent, and regardless of this fact, dumping into stormdrains is illegal, even if it's sugar and spice and everything nice.

[fanw.livejournal.com]

Wow! How disgustingly appropriate!

[cityofbeige.livejournal.com]

Huh... with a slogan like that, it makes you wonder if that was part of a corpse dissolved in lye or sulfuric acid.

[mark0429.livejournal.com]

ServPro is a huge company, but regional offices such as the one doing the illegal dumping are locally owned private franchises. And, knowing someone who owns their own franchise out of state, I am relatively certain that if this were to get reported up the ladder to corporate, they would handle it.

That's not to say that the local authorities should not be involved--they absolutely should--but I think that if the corporate offices became aware of this problem, they would also be equipped to deal with the offending franchisee/employee.

[islandofzilan.livejournal.com]

no they didn't, the person said , "his cleaning waste," my question is, how did they know that that is what was being dumped?

I understand you shouldn't dump anything into storm drains. but really storm water isn't neccessarily clean either.

[autumnsshadow.livejournal.com]

Classic.

[cityofbeige.livejournal.com]

Just about every storm drain I've seen in Somerville has a plaque over it saying that it drains directly to the Charles or Mystic River.

[m00n.livejournal.com]

Because it means this is probably company policy all over the place, rather than just an isolated incident.

[bobobb.livejournal.com]

My assessment of cleaning waste:
Soapy water that smells of rotten eggs

It seemed like an appropriate guess given the name on the van...

[spaz-i-mota.livejournal.com]

probably a coincidence..but the storm drains around day/orchard are giving off an exceptional STINK lately.

[srakkt.livejournal.com]

So are you being contrary out of some desire to engage in useless rhetoric, or are you simply of the opinion that other human beings are incapable of making a determination using common sense and the evidence at hand?

You're engaged semantic handwaving, you understand, which has absolutely nothing to do with anything terribly useful to the issue.

Marked van. Uniformed employee. Dumping *something* (anything). Storm drain.

"one shouldn't" is not the same thing as "it is illegal to" the two classes are not equivalent.

[srakkt.livejournal.com]

That was me. I'm sorry... I couldn't hold it any longer.

[spaz-i-mota.livejournal.com]

yikes..is that what happens when one eats chinese food from one of the questionable places around here? damn!