AUBURN — Three local Girl Scouts troops will going around the Twin Cities on Sunday, helping remind residents not to use the city’s storm drains as a a dump.
Auburn Public Services Planner Jaclyn Beebe said members of Girl Scout troops 1524, 2013 and 2012 will meet at Auburn’s Festival Plaza at 1 p.m. Sunday for a day of training about the city’s storm sewers.
The storm sewers have been modified in recent years to drain directly to the Androscoggin River, part of a federal Environmental Protection Agency mandate to keep those lines separate and distinct from the sanitary sewer system.
After their training, scouts will go out to paint stencils on sewer grates designed to remind residents that anything dumped in the storm drain, including grass clippings, pet waste, motor oil and other waste, goes straight to the river.
One group will stencil warnings on Auburn sewer grates in the Whitney Street neighborhood. In Lewiston, the Scouts will concentrate on drains on Webster and Pleasant streets.
“Both public works departments in Lewiston and Auburn are cooperating on this,” Beebe said.
The training and the stencils are part of the cities’ education and outreach program they need to perform to qualify for a federal Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems permit.
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