"Hi,
Calgary Alberta. My brother worked for city water department. It's
bylaw
often not reinforced but one can get ticket. We're talking about storm
sewer water recycling, oil industry water reccycling,
water conserving fixtures in all new houses, program for people to swap

out old toilets, water meter, etc.
We're trying to be ready years from now. Water is getting scarce even
here. Every drop counts. Older brush car wash place is being phased
out.
No touch brushless water conserving ultrasonic car wash is taking over.

U.S. is No. 1 energy user/polluter in the world. U.S. better take a
lead
in this field as well.
Tony "


Thanks for the tip Tony. I did a little checking on Alberta after your
post and I was right, I sure as hell wouldn't want to live there. I
looked at the municipal water dept rules and it looks like there is no
immediate water shortage, but Calgary does have a water use
restricition plan for times of drought or emergency. Guess what, even
here, in the US, most municipalites, including my own, have that.

It appears however, that the reason Calgary has their shorts in a knot
over car washing is that some environmental kooks think this is some
big source of pollution going into the storm drains. Here's an excerpt
from a Canadian website that's driving this whole idea:
http://www.forester.net/sw_0205_take.html

"A municipality that has limited driveway car washing is Calgary, AB,
on the Bow River. Although car washing is not expressly forbidden, the
Drainage Bylaw states that there can be no deleterious discharge from a
property to the storm sewer system. The city fines violators $300 and
enforces the bylaw through a snitch line. Convicting violators is
probably not the point, but the symbolism is powerful."

Nice system, complete with snitch line. And everyone should go read
the basis and rational used to come up with the idea that people
washing their car is a major source of pollution worth fixing.

Facts like "the results of a study of highway runoff toxicity by the
National Water Research Institute (NWRI), which characterized car
detritus as one of the major nonpoint sources of heavy metals, oil and
grease, and other components, such as rubber. NWRI concluded that road
runoff contains potential, confirmed, or severe toxicity in
three-fifths of all samples"

Now that's a real gem. What the hell does road run off have to do with
washing your car? One would think that the major components of
pollution on the road are left there from tire wear, oil dripping,
transmission leaks, etc., which the excerpt even lists. Has anyone
shown that what is typically on a car in the form of dirt is the same,
or even close to the same? And then we have the fact that millions of
miles of roadway gets washed down with every rainfall and where does
that all go? It all goes untreated right into storm sewers and then
into rivers, lakes and streams. Now how much does that contribute to
pollution as compared to some people occasional washing off their cars?
And doesn't it snow up there? What does Calgary put on the roads
when it's icey? Isn't that a far more significant contributor to
pollution to streams than your neighbor washing his car?

And if that isn't all stupid enough, if you look at Calgary water use
restrictions, unless there is a water emergency, you can still wash off
your driveway, house, etc., just not your car. Don't these other
things have dirt that's quite similar, especially the driveway?

So, my conclusion is this is just another example of some environmental
whackos going to the extreme. You know the type. They tell us we
shouldn't wash our car, while they drive SUVs that get 15 miles to the
gallon on weekend ski trips, or think nothing of how much pollution
their jet trip to Paris created or how much water it took to fill
bathroom spa. There are lots of things that are being done to protect
the environment. But keeping people from washing their cars isn't one
of them.