The Downtown Drainage BAttle
In the summer of 2024, a rainstorm was looming over the Midwest. As the storm broke over the city, the streets flooded, garbage poured out of the stormwater outfalls, and the citizens were stuck in mud, floodwaters, or other obstacles. Marinas, estuaries, and other downstream areas in the city were being littered with floating debris, threatening the urban fish and wildlife habitat which the city had restored and committed significant resources to keep healthy. Desperate and overwhelmed by the damage to the city, the mayor made an emergency call to the Stormwater Defenders.
Due to the streets being flooded, Super Sampler knew it was going to be difficult for anyone but Vax to be able to make it there in a short amount of time. She quickly dispatched him to the scene, where he reported an excessive amount of trash and debris in the city streets as he flew over them. The closer Vax got to the river edge that ran through the City, the more trash was accumulating along the curbs and blocking storm drains from working correctly.
Vax reported back to headquarters that they would likely need to initiate some trash and debris booms to trap the materials coming out of the outfalls from being carried downstream by the current. As he continued his recon, Vax saw that nearby streets were surprisingly not flooded and were still draining to a different outfall in the City. This was suspicious, and soon Vax’s sensors began to pick up unusual activity. Sure enough, within a few minutes the alarm that Chito-Man had programmed to track Scattershot’s movements began to beep on Vax’s control panel.
Click on VAX's Image to
read her Origin Story
Click on Scattershot's Image to
read his Origin Story
He immediately started to descend, where he found Scattershot broadly spreading a load of garbage on the street. As his own radar picked up Vax’s movements nearby, Scattershot let out a furious cry and aimed his blower hose at Vax, blinding him in a cloud of trash and debris. Vax turned on his suction system and they battled back and forth in and out of the plume of debris and garbage. Scattershot emptied his entire load of trash and debris on Vax, but Vax was able to contain the onslaught. Out of options to counter Vax’s attacks, Scattershot let his dust screen fall and escaped the scene.
Super Sampler, Chito-Man, and Sargeant Stormwater had arrived at the flooded area. Chito-man initiated the in-water response to the floating debris and garbage with skimmer nets and booms. Super Sampler coordinated with City operations and maintenance department, and soon all the vacuum trucks available were mobilized to the area. Vax scooped up the Sarge and flew with him into the surrounding area to install trash and debris filters and screens. As they made their way to the scene of the battle between Vax and Scattershot, Sarge noticed a programming chip that Scattershot must have dropped during the fighting. He collected the evidence and knew they would need to unlock the content back at headquarters once the cleanup was completed.
After several hours the rain subsided, and the sweeper trucks were finally able to remove all the debris off the streets. With the assistance of citizen volunteers, the garbage was cleared from the marinas and nearshore naturalized areas. Super Sampler’s analysis showed that their efforts had successfully protected water quality downstream once the trash and debris were controlled.
The next day, back at headquarters, Sarge and Chito-Man worked to access the information in the chip that was found on site. They discovered that Scattershot was programmed to pick up loads of materials that citizens paid to drop at a local materials recycling facility called IDDE Enterprises. “Sarge, the IDDE recycling center is owned by the Baron!” exclaimed Chito-Man. “He is not only misleading the public into falsely believing that their materials are being recycled when they are not, but he is putting the pollution back into the environment and we are having to spend more time and money to clean it up. This has got to stop! Vax, we need you to find the Baron!” charged Sarge. Vax, in his electronic voice, replied: “I won’t let him SWPPP it under the rug any longer!” as he rocketed off to hunt down The Baron.
Want to join the fight against pollution?
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