I adopted the street drain right in front of our house several years ago. The Adopt-A-Drain program through the City of Minneapolis has the goal of keeping garbage, pollutants (oil and other chemicals), and even organic matter like leaves, grass, etc. out of the watershed system. The objective is to keep our lakes, rivers and streams as clean as possible to protect the plant and animal life that live in places like our Mississippi River and Shingle Creek.
While this is usually a summer endeavor for me and my husband, I also have a vested interest in our street during these days of melting snow. With the rain that fell prior to Valentine’s Day, and the melting that took place in the relative heatwave, it was important to the residents on my street that our drains be open. Otherwise, we could expect a ‘skating rink’ where our street was once the temperature returned to normal.
So, we headed outside on Superbowl Sunday and started first with digging through the plow drift to actually see the drain.
The genius behind the city street systems throughout the country is to have water flow naturally downhill. We saw the water starting to flow into the drain, but “upstream” we could see that the water was still pooling.
Next step then was to chop out a channel to provide a straight path to the drain. Since the city engineers planned the water to flow from the middle of the street to the curb, we were not chopping in the middle of the street but closer to the side.
A shout-out to those driving down our street while we were out chopping – everyone slowed down while driving past us. (Perhaps they were wondering what those crazy old people were doing with ice choppers and shovels curbside. LOL.)
This was a great work-out prior to our football feast and gave us the opportunity to say hello to a few neighbors. More importantly, with the water flowing to the drain, we have averted possible accidents. With all vehicles parked on the opposite side of our street, more people have to walk across the street to get to their cars. Slippery footing and icy streets could mean a fall or worse with cars coming through.
Let’s all be safe and mindful of our neighbors.
Find out more at minneapolismn.gov/government/programs-initiatives/clean-city/adopt-a-drain.