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Take Action at Home
Tips for your home:
- Maintain your sewer lateral and cleanout to help keep rain, roots, etc., from causing backups in your home or overflows in our environment.
- Don't connect sources of stormwater, like downspouts and drains for foundations and driveways, that can overload KUB sewers.
- Can the Grease: Don't pour cooking grease down drains. It builds up, blocks pipes, and causes backups in homes and overflows in the environment.
- Inspect your septic system regularly [applies
only to homes not connected to the KUB sewer system]. Pump the tank about every four
years. Pump more often if you have a small tank, a large family, or put a lot of
food scraps, paper towels, etc., into the tank.
- Use environmentally friendly cleaning products. Properly dispose of
hazardous household waste, like cleaning solvents, chemicals, and paint.
Tips for your yard:
- Keep litter, pet waste, leaves, and debris out of sewer lateral cleanouts and manholes to help prevent sewer backups and overflows. Keep it out of street gutters and storm drains to protect waterways.
- Apply lawn and garden chemicals and pesticides according to directions and use as little as you can.
- Choose native plants that require less fertilizer and pesticides to maintain.
- Use landscaping to reduce runoff and prevent erosion, especially near streams or drainage ditches.
- Leave grass a little higher to reduce runoff from your yard.
- Don't rake leaves or grass into the street. Leaving them on the lawn returns nutrients to the soil.
- Don't use plastic groundcover; use mulch instead to help absorb water and prevent runoff.
- Collect rainwater from your roof drains in mosquito-proof barrels to use for watering your lawn or garden.
- Use a rain garden or grassy swale planted with native plants to provide a natural place for rainwater to collect and soak into the ground. Rain from rooftops can be diverted to these areas.
- Cover piles of dirt or mulch being used in landscaping projects.
- Don't fill in or obstruct drainage ditches.
Tips for your garage/driveway/sidewalk:
- Never pour used automotive fluids (like oil, antifreeze, gas, or brake fluid) down a drain, flush them down the toilet, or empty them in a storm drain.
- Repair vehicles that are leaking fluids to prevent contaminating waterways.
- Clean up spilled automotive fluids. Don't just hose them into your yard or the street where they can reach the City stormwater system and, eventually, waterways.
- Consider using permeable pavement. Traditional concrete and asphalt don't allow water to soak into the ground. Pavement that allows water to soak through decreases runoff.
- Sweep up litter and debris instead of washing it into your yard or the street where runoff may carry it to waterways.
| If you have additional feedback, please contact us as follows: |
| E-mail your comments: |
PACE10@kub.org |
| Mail: |
KUB
Attn: PACE 10 - Mailstop GS03
P.O. Box 59017
Knoxville, TN 37950-9017 |
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