A street gutter leads directly to the beach and cities are required by federal law to help prevent ocean pollution. To help local jurisdictions with this requirement, we stencil local storm drains with the words "No Dumping Drains to Ocean". We invite you to join our team, or to lead one of your own in this highly-visible project.

4 Steps to Painting a Storm Drain

1. Get psyched

2. Prep
First make sure that no cars are parked immediately next to the drain, if there is use a big piece of cardboard by blocking the paint spray. Clean the area to be painted with a whisk broom.

To save a whole lot of time work as two teams, white and blue. The white group can go ahead to the next drain while the blue group can wait for the paint to dry before painting the stencil.

3. White Paint Team
Pour some white paint into the paint tray and soak up the roller really good. Keep the stencil next to the area that you want to paint. Hold the roller steady and go slow to ensure that the white strip is not crooked. Make it as long as the stencil and wait for it to dry.

4. Blue Paint Team
Wait till the white paint is completely dry. Check by lightly touching.

Place the stencil centered and straight over the white paint. Then put the "over spray guard cardboard" over that.

Now shake up the blue paint real good. These cans spray upside down so they are a little hard to get used to. Hold the cans straight on, perpendicular to the face of the curb and spray. Avoid fuzzy letters by not spraying from the side.

Remove the cardboard from the stencil and pick the stencil straight up because paint on the underside of the stencil may smear.

Viola! "NO DUMPING! Flows to Bay" for all to see.

Good Job! Just a few dozen more!
We usually go for about 2 to 2 1/2 hours. After a first couple the crew starts to gets into a groove. If we go pretty fast we can paint up to 40 drains in that amount of time. Do not go too fast because you might compromise quality. And remember to have fun!