At 10:30 that night, an industrial slough near the Oakland Coliseum roared to life. The slough wasn’t particularly noticeable hidden behind chain-link fences. But the vast surrounding parking lot made it perfect for measuring the stuff scoured from the city streets by rain. All the water falling across five square kilometers of mostly impervious pavement ran through this choke point. Huddled in rain gear on an overpass, a research team from the San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI) was ready for the cascade. As a stream of cars carrying concertgoers rolled out of the coliseum parking lot, the researchers used sampling rods to sip more than 70 liters from the stream of storm water below. Read Full Article »
When Rubber Hits the Road — and Washes Away
The
storm unleashed one evening in late November 2018. The first splashes of rain wet the streets of Oakland, California, with a smell like damp stone. Then, a crescendo of water pounded roofs, drops glancing off gutters with metallic pings. As the storm water sluiced over sidewalks and streets, it erased the boundary between land and sea, carrying branches, plastic bottles, motor oil, and more into San Francisco Bay.
At 10:30 that night, an industrial slough near the Oakland Coliseum roared to life. The slough wasn’t particularly noticeable hidden behind chain-link fences. But the vast surrounding parking lot made it perfect for measuring the stuff scoured from the city streets by rain. All the water falling across five square kilometers of mostly impervious pavement ran through this choke point. Huddled in rain gear on an overpass, a research team from the San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI) was ready for the cascade. As a stream of cars carrying concertgoers rolled out of the coliseum parking lot, the researchers used sampling rods to sip more than 70 liters from the stream of storm water below. Read Full Article »
At 10:30 that night, an industrial slough near the Oakland Coliseum roared to life. The slough wasn’t particularly noticeable hidden behind chain-link fences. But the vast surrounding parking lot made it perfect for measuring the stuff scoured from the city streets by rain. All the water falling across five square kilometers of mostly impervious pavement ran through this choke point. Huddled in rain gear on an overpass, a research team from the San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI) was ready for the cascade. As a stream of cars carrying concertgoers rolled out of the coliseum parking lot, the researchers used sampling rods to sip more than 70 liters from the stream of storm water below. Read Full Article »
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