DRAIN SMART ARTISTS ARE PAINTING STORM DRAIN MURALS

Local conservation groups, artists and city officials have help from area artists to spread clean water message

A new cohort of artists has begun working on their storm drain murals for the sixth year of the Drain Smart Central Arkansas project. Drain Smart is a public art program aimed at raising awareness, education, and protection of local water resources. Twelve murals are being painted, eight in Little Rock, two in North Little Rock, and two in Bryant. This project will adhere to federal, state, and local guidelines concerning Covid-19.

The artists come from various backgrounds and walks of life, from lifelong professional artists to high school students working on their first public project. Each has a story to tell about what motivated them to apply and about the concept they submitted. They are working now through June 1. Each artist is responsible for setting their own schedule, but arrangements for on-site interviews can be made through project coordinator Dan Scheiman, Conservation Director for Audubon Arkansas.

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What is Drain Smart?

Drain Smart is an engaging public-education / environmental program that uses art to communicate the function and importance of local storm drains. It gives artists the opportunity to express themselves via semi-permanent public art in a series of a small-scale outdoor storm drain murals. The art also serves to educate the public on local water quality protection.

​Why Storm Drains? 

In most cities across the United States, municipal storm drains are a direct link to the nearest streams, rivers or lakes. When it rains, storm water flows over parking lots, lawns and other surfaces. This moving water works like a magnet that attaches to everything in its path. Paper and plastic items, grease and oil, brake dust, anti-freeze, fertilizer, yard and pet waste and many other assorted items of litter are all carried into our storm drains when it rains. This polluted water travels untreated through this system before being discharged into our local waterbodies.

Many residents have a misconception that the storm drains are part of our sanitary sewer system that lead to the wastewater treatment plant, which leads them to misuse storm drains--thinking it's a "safe" way to dispose of waste. When pollutants are disposed of via storm drains, they end up directly in our waterways.