You are the solution to water pollution

Are you a do-it-yourselfer? By preventing fluids from reaching the street or storm drain when working on your car, you can prevent stormwater pollution and help protect our streams, and our lake.

Be aware of where you work as any drips or spills on the ground can be carried away by rainwater into a storm drain

one of our streams and then into the lake. Work on a flat concrete surface that you can easily clean up with cloths or paper towels when accidental spills happen.

When changing your oil, use funnels and drip pans or containers, and recycle used oil and antifreeze at the Towns County Recycling Center at the Transfer Station on Sunnyside (288). Do not mix fluids as they are recycled separately. Tires can also be recycled at the Transfer Station.

Wash your car at a car wash that recycles the water. Wash water at home can contain detergents, metals, oil, sediment and other debris that can pollute nearby streams and Lake Chatuge.

Each year millions of gallons of used motor oil are disposed of improperly, dripped, spilled or poured directly onto the ground or down storm drains. It only takes four quarts, or about one oil change,

used motor oil to foul one million gallons of drinking water. And the water that goes into the lake becomes our drinking water in Towns County.