Many boat ramps were closed. The water was just too low.
Posted on 10/25/2013 10:10:17 AM PDT by markomalley
It’s hard to wave your spirit fingers when the city shuts down the cheerleading squad’s fundraising car wash to protect the environment.
This is what happened to Lincoln High School cheerleaders trying to raise money to attend a national competition in April. The San Jose Mercury reports that local environmental officials warned the high school cheerleaders that their car wash violated the city’s water discharge laws.
“We had a visit from the city of San Jose Environmental Services Department who said that the car washes at Hoover [Middle School] are in violation of water discharge laws, therefore we had to cancel this and all future car washes,” said an email that was sent out to neighborhood email lists on Oct. 18.
“Anything that is not storm water or rain water is considered a pollutant,” said Jennie Loft, acting communications manager for San Jose’s Environmental Services Department. “If it goes into a storm drain, that pollutant will harm wildlife and habitats in the creeks. Water goes directly from the storm drains into our creeks.”
The city intervened in response to two complaints received about the car wash events Lincoln High Schoolers had been holding at Hoover Middle School. City officials reached out to school and district staff to give them information on how to prevent pollutants from getting into storm drains.
The city also gave some tips on how they can have legally compliant cars washes.
The Mercury reports: “Conduct car washing over gravel, grassy area, or other earthen areas if possible… Ensure that wash water (soapy or not) does not run into a street, gutter, or storm drain… Wash water from paved areas should be collected and diverted either into the sanitary sewer system or a landscaped area… Use different methods to protect the storm drain system… Ensure no soap stains remain on the ground.”
These byzantine regulations don’t just apply to high school sports teams struggling to raise money, but also to individuals who want to give their car a rinse.
“What most people should do if washing their cars at home is park it on the lawn so the water is diverted into landscape,” Loft said. “Or go to a designated neighborhood car wash, so it doesn’t go into the storm drain.”
According to the Mercury, the Lincoln High School cheerleaders still need funds to get to their competition and are welcoming contributions by check to “Lincoln Cheer 2013-2014, Lincoln High School, 555 Dana Ave., San Jose, 95126, attention Mrs. Phillips.”
Now that is a nice looking lake as opposed to a place to fly kites.
It reminds me though, that all the lakes in Texas aside from maybe 2 are man-made.
Many boat ramps were closed. The water was just too low.
EXACTLY my thought....
Gotcha....I understand restricting water in droughts. But that is usually our local rural water board that asks us to do that, not the Feds. But I understand your point.
but we still have water, so far. But start stocking up bottled water for us if things don’t change.
All this rain recently barely made a dent.
WOW!!! looks like its been a while since you could use that boat ramp as a BOAT ramp!
nice camper
These girls just didn’t go about it correctly.
They needed to be doing one of two things:
1. Topless and constantly kissing and rubbing each other.
2. Pay a couple guys to dress in Bikinis and prance around and help.
Either of those would have allowed them to scream LBGT discrimination and the environazis would have slinked away and allowed them to continue.
Agricultural runoff is a BIG deal here in my neck of America. Soap? not so much.
lol
that's why God invented tar, feathers, and rails
if you care about your paint finish you would stay away from any bunch of cheerleaders with the intent to “clean” your car with a bucket of water and brushes that contains the filth of the 50 cars that went ahead of you.
seriously.
WOW!!! looks like its been a while since you could use that boat ramp as a BOAT ramp!
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4 years and counting....
Side story. Me and Mrs R2 just bought property at Medina Lake this year. Because they develped a nice community as a lake side resort subdivision - and now there is no lake - they have cut asking prices by 1/2.
So yeah. We just bought two lots. Cheap. If and when the water returns and the lake comes back - BOUNS! Our values will double.
If not - well it is still a nice community. We keep our RV there and it makes for a great weekend getaway.
Especially if you have a white car.
I love this Xterra. It tows that RV with power to spare.
This wasn’t the Feds. The city also let the school know how to hold a car wash without risking the environment. Putting the cars on a grassy area is not such a hardship. This is one of those rules that makes sense. Liberal probably would want to have centrally controlled water meters to make sure water use was distributed fairly and restricted once a certain level was reached.
Now what gets interesting is when the rules themselves are a main contributor to a problem that other rules are made to solve or prevent. For example requiring that parking areas have a certain amount of impervious surface means at some point you will get run off from that surface.
Ah but what can one expect, these are the same type of great minds that believed a low flush toilet would save water. Forgetting just why the toilet needed to flush int he first place.
I think maybe they ship it to China for them to put in dog treats.
TO CAPTURE FREE RAIN WATER!
Wow!
Um, who’s been watering the lawn? Looks awful green. :-^)
Yep. We have had some rain this summer - but we need a few hundred feet more to fill ‘er up.
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