For Businesses
Businesses, institutions, churches and medical facilities all play a role in protecting our local waterways. Check out these housekeeping tips for ways to reduce your contribution to stormwater pollution. You can also contact the GLRC to partner in educating your staff and customers on pollution prevention.
What is Stormwater?
In a natural landscape, water from rain and snow melt is either absorbed into the ground or is evaporated.
But when land is developed, the hard impervious surfaces of roofs, parking lots, roads, and buildings prevent water from absorbing into the ground. Water flows off of these surfaces and becomes stormwater.
In developed areas, stormwater drains are installed to capture and redirect water that would otherwise flood roads, buildings and parking lots. In areas with Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems, this runoff is piped and/or directed into rivers, lakes and streams (learn more about MS4s)
However, this means any pollutants on the ground can be swept along with stormwater runoff, impacting water quality and aquatic habitat.
To highlight the importance of keeping storm drains clear of pollutants like litter, yard waste, debris, leaking automotive fluids, pet waste, fertilizers, pesticides, sediments, and soapy water, the GLRC and Tri-County Regional Planning Commission implemented the "ArtStorm 2025" grant project.
The placemaking project installed murals surrounding storm drain infrastructure in all 17 GLRC member-communities (see map at right) under a grant funded by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation’s Michigan Arts and Culture Council and in partnership with the Arts Council of Greater Lansing.
The murals engage residents through vibrant art while helping them to understand how to protect our lakes, rivers, and streams. Educational messages within the murals help people make connections between pollution on the ground and the health of our waterways, urging them to keep drains clear.
Residents and visitors can engage further with the murals in five fun geocaching Adventure Labs. The labs are treasure hunting games that lead participants on an adventure through the murals, looking for
clues that leads oneto a cache containing a logbook and small treasures. To play, one must download the Adventure Lab app and seek out the bit.ly/StormwaterArtStorm adventure.
