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SCHENECTADY
Law targets vehicle washing in street
Plan would affect commercial users
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter

   For a year, state and city officials have tried to make it clear that washing a vehicle in the street is a form of polluting.
   In another month, it may be illegal, with violators facing fi nes of up to $350 for a first offense.
   But the proposed law will apply only to commercial vehicle users who hose down a vehicle and let the dirt and soap wash down the stormwater pipes. The stormwater drains lead straight to the Mohawk River, without being filtered at the sewage treatment plant.
   The Schenectady City Council is planning to hold a public hearing on the proposed law Nov. 26, with a vote tentatively scheduled for Dec. 10.
   The new law, required by the state in an effort to clean up all waterways, focuses on residents — despite giving them a car-washing exemption.
   “The number one source of pollutants is the little things people are doing,” county planner Jim Kalohn said, arguing that big companies have largely stopped dumping into lakes and rivers in the state.
   “The Mohawk River was unusable at one time, back in the ’50s. It was pretty bad,” Kalohn said. “Now it’s cleaned up but [residents] are polluting the lakes, rivers, streams. It’s a cumulative impact: everybody’s doing just a little bit and they don’t think it counts.”
   The only “little bit” that will be allowed is residential car washing.
   “EPA and the state decided that would be totally unenforceable,” Kalohn said.
   Residents will still be asked to wash their cars on their lawn — where the ground can filter out the soap — or drive to a car wash. Dirty water from car wash facilities goes to the sewage treatment plant.
   Residents would be on the hook for a variety of other “illicit discharge” offenses, some of which may seem minor. Dog walkers, for example, would have to be more careful about how they dispose of pet waste.
   “They dump pet waste down a storm drain. That’s one of the most common things people might do, not knowing it’s a stormwater drain,” Kalohn said.
   Drains that open onto a street are stormwater drains. They do not connect to the sewage system.
   Washing paint off a building — or anything else — would also break the law if the resident lets the paint drain into the stormwater pipes.
   “Use kitty litter to absorb it,” Kalohn said. “Paint is a pollutant. That’s an illicit discharge.”
   Pesticides and fertilizers are also regulated under the proposed law.
   “It’s illicit if they overspray and put it on the driveway or the street,” Kalohn said.
   Herbicides could be sprayed on sidewalks to get rid of weeds, but it cannot spread past the weeds.
   Some business owners have complained that the Downtown Schenectady Improvement Corp. is polluting when it sprays downtown sidewalks each summer. DSIC officials have said it’s more expensive and time-consuming to pay workers to hand-pull the weeds.
   Kalohn said DSIC could cautiously spray the weeds.
   “If it’s applied properly, if it’s just on the weeds, sidewalks are OK,” Kalohn said.
   Every municipality will have to give stormwater-management powers to at least one employee, but the enforcement task could be shared by the city’s code enforcement officers and others.
   Residents who are ticketed would get a fine of up to $350 for the first offense, $700 for the second and $1,000 for the third. They could also be sentenced to jail for up to six months.