City of Warner Robins promotes clean waterways during Stormwater Awareness Week

WARNER ROBINS, Ga. — We drive and walk past storm drains every day, but utility workers at the city of Warner Robins work up close and personal with them, and the city is spreading awareness on the importance of keeping them clean.

In fact, this week was Stormwater Awareness Week for the city, spanning from Sept. 24 to Sept. 30, as proclaimed during the city’s council meeting on Sept. 5.

During the week, the city took to social media, sent information to select businesses and set up a station at city hall, giving the public a behind the scenes look at the stormwater department, and providing tips to help keep storm drains and infrastructure clean.

For Krag Woodyard, the city’s director of stormwater compliance, educating the public is an important cause, as it helps the city stay in compliance with state standards and promote a safer environment. From a safety standpoint, storm drains are not filtered like sewer systems, so anything that goes into storm drains goes directly into rivers and streams.

“A lot of times we find areas that there’s been illegal dumping, illegal discharging into the storm system, which then again, goes into our creeks, streams, rivers. Those pollutants affect downstream … so it’s extremely important that we inform everybody as to what can be done and can’t be done as far as dumping into storm drains,” Woodyard said.

As Woodyard explained, even pollutants like grass clippings can clog storm drains, leading to flooding, so the city promoted the simple slogan “only rain in the storm drain.” They also educated on the role stormwater crews play in maintaining and inspecting infrastructure and their partnership with departments like public works, engineering and Keep Warner Robins Beautiful. Woodyard said planning the campaign has been a collaborative effort among multiple departments.

With a mission to also partner with citizens to ensure the community stays clean, Woodyard explained a campaign like Stormwater Awareness helps this mission and helps the city set a precedent for the future.

“The overall mission is to partner with our citizens, also to educate our citizens on keeping our community clean, also being good stewards of our community so that we set the example for the next community and they see what we’re doing and say ‘hey, they’re doing great things with their stormwater management program, and let’s follow suit,” Woodyard said.

To see more tips, visit the city’s Facebook page: “City of Warner Robins Government.”

For more information on the stormwater compliance department, visit https://www.wrga.gov/318/Stormwater-Compliance-Department

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