There's a lot that can be done on a neighbourhood level to clean up stormwater before it enters the stormwater pits and ends up in the Yarra. And one of the bonuses of treating and capturing stormwater is that one of the best ways to do it is to create nice lush green garden beds.
A lot of developers building new subdivisions out in Doreen or on the dry Western Plains, love treating stormwater because it's pretty much the only way they can create green public landscapes with current water restrictions. And really, it is crazy to let all that water drain directly into the Yarra when we could have it soaking into our soil right here.

The image above shows a section of Charlotte Street showing the existing road profile, and stormwater treatment. So basically the water runs over the road, picking up pollutants on the way, and then falls directly into the drain, where it flows on into the Yarra and does significant damage.

There's lots of ways to introduce stormwater treatment, and some of them require very little changes to the existing kerb and road layout - but the solution I've drawn up here is a little more elaborate.

What we could do is remove the kerbs altogether and allow the road and footpath surface to slope gently down to a vegetated swale (or mini wetland) on one side of the road . The green strappy leaved plants in the swale act to clean and filter the water before it reaches the drains (click here to see plan showing possible location of swale). We could store our stormwater in underground tanks so that we can use it for watering public landscapes. And the whole system can be designed so that in a storm event any overflow will be carried away by the existing stormwater infrastructure.

image of a stormwater treatment swale in the docklands from WSUD an organisation dealing with water sensitive urban design in Sydney, which provides lots of useful practical information.

It's a rainy Sunday morning and it's pouring down outside as I write this - everything is getting a really good soaking.

This is great news for our gardens and street trees - but not so good for the poor old Yarra River. Tomorrow, when Yarra Watch measure the contamination in the river, they'll find higher levels of toxins and bacteria than before the rain.

Everyone knows that the Yarra is sick, we've all heard about the kayakers with leptospirosis and the dead eels, but why? No doubt part of the problem is fertilizers and animal poo from farms in the Upper Yarra, or more disturbingly; businesses like Amcor Packaging in Abbotsford who illegally wash toxins into the river, but I can't just blame other people for the problem. The sad fact is that a large part of the pollution is from neighbourhoods like ours, on nice wet days like today.

As I write this, all that rainwater is running over the road, and the footpaths, and down the gutter to the stormwater pits. On the way the rainwater is picking up pollutants from the surface - including petrochemicals, oils, rubbish, dog poo, detergents and organic matter, which are washed into the drains by the water. By this afternoon, all of that water and pollution is going to end up in the Yarra River. (For a more comprehensive listof pollutants and their effects click here).

So what can we do? On an individual level - not a hell of a lot. We can pick up litter, wash the car in a carwash, and report anyone putting anything nasty where it will end up in the drains. As a neighbourhood however, we can do a lot.

Basically, the best thing we can do is retain and use as much of the water here in our neighbourhood as possible, and then make sure the water that ends up in the stormwater system is clean before it gets to the Yarra.

I've got a couple of ideas on how we could apply some water sensitive urban design measure here in our neighbourhood, I'll draw them up and post them shortly.

The photo above left is one of the stormwater pits in our neighbourhood, taken today during a brief hiatus in the rainfall. Click image to see larger