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> Clifford R. Young

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> Storm Water Pollution: Issues and Abatement

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>Clifford Young is the President and founder of Pollution Reduction

>Services, Inc. (PRSI) a San Jose based environmental products and

>services company focused on solving urban pollution runoff and

>flood control issues. PRSI provides user friendly, cost effective

>environmental compliance programs for businesses and governmental

>agencies, and is committed to educating businesses, governmental

>agencies, technical professionals, and the public about urban

>runoff pollution.

>

>Mr. Young, a former environmental regulator in the Bay Area with

>more than twenty years of experience in the public and private

>sector, will discuss the issue of urban runoff pollution and

>material spills, and describe the products and services PRSI has

>developed to address these problems, notably the Drain Sentinel.

>

Clifford Young began his talk by discussing the business plan that he pitches to businesses. For $2.75 a day, he sells them the service of keeping their pollution out of our public drainage system. In addition, his company offers a complete package, going all the way from the plan required by regulators through the hardware his company installs to catch the pollution to the servicing required to monitor the system and keep it working properly.

The key element of his system is a clever filter that can be installed in storm drains called a Drain Sentinel. The relationship between the water inlet and the outgoing pipe is such that pollutants that float on water, for example the oil from parking lots, are prevented from flowing out by their being kept above the drain holes by standing water. Heavy sediments are settled out, and there is a reticulated filter to catch some of the dissolved stuff. There are pictures of units working on the company website, which is at http://www.pollutionreduction.com/.

For applications like parking lots and construction sites, this tool makes a lot of sense as a way to reduce our impact on streams and lakes. For more high tech operations, where there are exotic pollutants, a more comprehensive pollution prevention strategy is required.

Young's company started about four or five years ago, and he spent the first few years working out the details of the Drain Sentinel(TM) and the business plan that would make sense to industrial customers. He was inspired to build this device by seeing many people baffled by the regulatory requirements that came with tightened clean water requirements. The company now has nine employees and is preventing much pollution in Santa Clara County.

Tian Harter