In urban areas, roads, sidewalks, roofs, and other impervious surfaces prevent water from permeating into the ground. This means that there is an increased likelihood of flooding during storms. To counteract this, cities use storm sewer systems. While some older sewer systems combine both sanitary and storm sewage, such as Washington D.C.’s, most cities have separate sewer systems (“History of the Sewer System). In separate sewer systems, the sanitary sewage is sent to a plant to be treated while the stormwater is sent straight into the receiving waterbody without treatment (“Storm vs. Sanitary Sewer”). In the process of being discharged, stormwater picks up the pollutants, debris, and litter on the city’s impervious surfaces, and since it
