Volunteers’ efforts go down the drain
Creativity flows as residents ‘adopt’ and name street ducts
With rain finally back in the Bay Area this week following an unseasonably dry December, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission is looking to remind city residents about their chance to enlist in the annual fight against flooding.
Since October 2016, the agency’s Adopt-a-Drain program has allowed San Franciscans to become volunteer caretakers for some of the city’s 25,000 storm drains, pledging to keep them free of trash, leaves and other debris, which helps curtail localized flooding during the typically rainy winter months.
The initiative represents one facet of the PUC’s RainReadySF campaign, an annual push to spread awareness about flood readiness. The campaign has taken on a new sense of urgency in recent years as the city works to ease the effects of climate change — flooding from sea-level rise
and intensifying rainstorms chief among them.
Unlike any other coastal city in California, San Francisco’s sewer system collects and treats both storm runoff and wastewater using the same pipes, which means the system can quickly become overwhelmed during particularly heavy storms, so the city needs to intervene.
In October, the SFPUC expanded a grant program that reimburses flood victims for improvements to their homes or businesses, like doorway seals or flood barriers, that can help lessen or prevent flood damage. That’s on top of a number of major infrastructure upgrades the agency has planned to make the city more flood-resistant.
The Adopt-a-Drain program, however, represents perhaps the easiest way for most any city resident to participate in keeping the streets free of floods. In addition to keeping storm water from pooling on city streets, “the program also fosters community engagement by encouraging San Franciscans to take an active role in improving their neighborhood,” Tyler Gamble, an SFPUC spokesman, said in an email.
There are plenty of drains still looking for patrons. To date, 1,834 drains have been adopted by over 1,100 community members in San Francisco, according to the SFPUC. Finding a drain and registering to adopt it takes only minutes on the program’s website, https://adopt adrain.sfwater.org, which also includes tips on how to properly care for the drains.
“For me, it’s more of a service thing. You feel like you’re a part of the neighborhood, and keeping things flowing is a good thing,” said Mark Cormier, who was among the first to adopt a drain when the program began. He proclaims to be “a proud drain daddy” in a promotional video for the program. Cormier has also taken to caring for a second drain across from the one he officially adopted, but he’s held off from formally adopting it, at the risk of “keeping someone else from getting involved in the program,” he said.
Amy Zock’s reasons for adopting her drain are equal parts civic altruism and competitive zeal. While browsing through the interactive map of drains developed by Code for San Francisco, she discovered that her neighbor Vince had already adopted one. Drain adopters are allowed to name their drains, and his was something akin to The Cleanest Drain in the Sunset (District), the neighborhood where they both live.
“I have this competitive nature and I said, ‘I’m going to adopt the drain across the street,’ and we’ve been competing to see who has the cleanest one. On weekends we’ll clean our drains and go get coffee. It’s been super fun,” Zock said. “It was a fun way to be able to participate in the community. And it’s one of the things where not everyone knows they can go clean a drain and how helpful it can be for the water system. I was just excited to do it,” she said.
Her drain’s name: Cleaner than Vince’s Drain.
To date, the most popular drain name citywide is Drainy McDrainface, followed by Brain Drain, Drain the Swamp and Drainmond Green, an homage to the Golden State Warriors’ celebrated power forward.