District 10 Como Community Council

Help Keep Como Lake Clean – In Front of Your Own Home!

Help Keep Como Lake Clean – In Front of Your Own Home!

Como Community Council is teaming up with the Como Active Citizen Network and Capitol Region Watershed District on this year’s Como Curb Clean-up. When it rains, leaves on streets release nutrients into the water that flows into storm drains and the lake. There it becomes food for invasive algae. Join 100+ neighbors in sweeping your curb once a week this fall to help keep Como Lake clean.

Signing up to be an official participant helps us track results and helps us (a lot) to support future efforts!

Collective Curb Cleaning Practice (from ComoACN website)

Simple in design, but mighty in its impact, Curb Cleaning is an individual, household practice led by Como neighbors on their own properties. When we all do this, it becomes a collective practice, removing water pollution sources that, in the aggregate, significantly impact our beloved local waters – Como Lake and the Mississippi River.

2021 Curb Cleaning season begins Friday, Oct. 1st!

During autumn, our focus is leaves! All those fall leaves that accumulate in our street gutters otherwise known as our “curbs.” Each household focuses just on the stretch of curb that borders their own private property (alleys too, if you have one).

Streets + leaves + stormwater runoff = nutrient pollution in local waters!

When rainwater washes over leaf litter accumulated along street curbs, phosphorus and nitrogen leach out of those leaves (think of a tea bag). This creates nutrient infused runoff that then flows to the nearest storm drain and into underground storm sewer pipes. In Como, our pipes empty into Como Lake and the Mississippi River.

Como Lake is already impaired due to excessive nutrients that feed noxious algae. This annual pollution influx coming from our neighborhood streets further degrades lake and river water quality and damages the aquatic ecosystem.

How to practice Curb Cleaning!

It’s simple, really.

  • October 1st, begin monitoring the curbs that border your private property.
  • Once a week (or as needed) if you notice leaf litter has accumulated along the curb, sweep it up.
  • You can simply push it up onto your boulevard. This at least gets it out of the street where stormwater runoff will flow. You can then deal with the leaves when you’re ready to manage your yard leaves.
  • Or you can gather them up and move them immediately to a pile in your backyard, to breakdown into compost over the winter.
  • Or you can bundle them up and take them to the nearest county yard waste site.
  • Or you can bag them in a compostable bag and ask your waste hauler to pick them up (for a fee).
  • November 30th, if you’d like your pollution source removal to be counted in our community-wide, aggregated measurement of Pounds of Phosphorous Prevented, you can report a.) how many feet of curbage you took care of and b.) how often you cleaned your curbage. We will have a form on this page and email reporting info to you if you’ve registered to participate.