The Daily Bulletin Archive

This is the first in a series of articles from the Environmental Health and Safety Office focusing on storm water pollution prevention awareness. The Clean Water Act Amendments of 1987 established the first federally based provisions to specifically curb water pollution from storm water drainage systems maintained and operated by governmental entities. In 1998, the U.S. EPA promulgated Phase 2 of the storm water regulations, which established requirements for smaller, government-operated storm sewer systems, including those located within urbanized areas that service populations less than 100,000, to obtain permits from the EPA or an EPA-delegated state agency. Today, Buffalo State College is one of about 4,000 permitted small systems nationwide that must fulfill the terms and conditions of a storm water discharge permit, including goals for increasing public and employee awareness of the need to prevent pollution of storm water runoff. As part of this effort, you will notice “Only Rain Down the Drain” stenciled in blue around campus storm drain inlets, which receive and convey storm water runoff and snow melt from the college premises to Scajaquada Creek.