It’s raining, it’s pouring…..We all know how the rest of this song goes. Runoff from stormwater can do more damage than just dampen our plans for the day. The University of Southern Maine takes stormwater seriously because, like any college campus, we have a USM a significant amount of non-permeable surfaces, such as parking lots, plazas and walkways. Runoff has the ability to pick up any and everything that is discarded or discharged on the ground and carry it into our surrounding water sources that we use for recreation, swimming and drinking. Debris and spills from items like pesticides, fertilizers, trash, pet waste and more would flow straight into places like Tannery Brook which lies along the perimeter of our Gorham campus and eventually drains into the Presumpscot River and then Casco Bay.
USM has been actively managing this challenge for many years. The University has a five year stormwater management plan that covers both the Gorham and Portland campuses. This plan complies with the Department of Environmental Protection’s requirements and includes mitigation efforts such as planting to reduce runoff, creative storm water drain stencils, making it easy to report incidents, and integrating storm water education into the USM course curriculum. The plan is available upon request by phone, email or through our contact form.
To educate yourself on stormwater, check out the resources below:
If you notice something fishy going on with someone dumping an unknown substance into a storm drain or notice a substance leaking from a piece of equipment, please notify Facilities Management. They can be reached at 207-780-4160 or via email at usmfixit@maine.edu. Reporting these instances can help us prevent pollution from entering local waterways.
To participate in stormwater mitigation and outreach efforts in our area, please attend the Interlocal Stormwater Working Group (ISWG) Meetings. Information about ISWG meetings can be found here. Upcoming meeting dates include:
- May 21st from 8:30 am- 11:00 am, 2026 in person at the Westbrook Housing Authority
- July 16th from 8:30 am- 11:00 am, 2026 in person at the Westbrook Housing Authority
- September 17th from 8:30 am- 11:00 am, 2026 in person at the Westbrook Housing Authority
- November 19th from 8:30 am- 11:00 am, 2026 in person at the Westbrook Housing Authority
- January 21st from 8:30 am- 11:00 am, 2027 in person at the Westbrook Housing Authority
The Urban Runoff will not take place again for the foreseeable future. However, the University co-hosts a stormwater education event every spring in the week before or during earth week. There are also one or more trash clean-up events on campus during this time. For the most up-to-date information on storm-water related events at the University, please follow the Office of Sustainability on Instagram at sustainability_usm or reach out via the contact information on this page. Thank you for helping to keep our waterways clean and to learn about stormwater initiatives at the University.