Beth Silver spends a lot of time these days with her friend Dwayne. The thing is, Dwayne is a storm drain close to her home near San Francisco’s Mount Davidson.

Silver likes her street to be tidy. So when plastic bottles and stray twigs cover Dwayne’s grating, she rakes them into a plastic garbage bag to keep the drain from being clogged.

The retired elementary school secretary officially adopted the storm drain through a San Francisco Public Utilities Commission program begun this fall that allowed her to give her new responsibility a name.

“It just came to me,” Silver said. “Dwayne the Drain. He was definitely a Dwayne.”

Back to Gallery SF letting residents adopt, name storm drains to fight... 3 1 of 3 Photo: Santiago Mejia, The Chronicle 2 of 3 Photo: Santiago Mejia, The Chronicle 3 of 3 Photo: Santiago Mejia, The Chronicle





The PUC’s Adopt-a-Drain program was partly the brainchild of agency spokeswoman Jean Walsh, whose goal, she said, was to prevent flooding in neighborhoods by having residents clear away debris that covers drains during storms. Her inspiration was Boston’s “Adopt-a-Hydrant” initiative that gives volunteers the responsibility to shovel snow and ice off their neighborhood fire hydrants.

San Francisco has provided an online interactive map showing the different options and locations of drains awaiting adoption. So far, more than 565 residents have adopted 934 of San Francisco’s 25,000 storm drains. After a bit of training, residents in shiny orange vests, with shovels, brooms and gloves provided by the city, can be seen on wet days clearing detritus from their adopted storm drains. The care they give prevents pools and puddles of water from forming, helping the agency curb flooding.

The drains dump runoff into the bay and ocean, while catch basins funnel water into a combined sewer system treatment plant. Last year, the agency cleaned 9,000 catch basins. The new program frees up PUC employees to clean more of them, Walsh said.

Silver heard about the drain adoption program through friends. She’d already been clearing the grates of drains in her neighborhood anyway.

“At the risk of sounding like a crazy person, I spent a lot of time pulling gunk off the grate when I would walk my dog at 6 a.m.,” Silver said. “I got obsessive about it. So when I noticed you could adopt and name your own drain, I said absolutely. I’ve actually adopted two drains.”

The big perk was the inclusion of naming rights. There’s Puuurple Drainnnn, The Great Leaf Catcher, No Drain No Gain and Denny the Drain. One lucky grate was dubbed ‘Really Disgusting Drain’ after a resident found a dead animal caught in a cesspool of rainwater. Nearly 600 of the 934 adopted drains have been named.

“Dwayne is the favorite drain,” Silver said. The other one she hasn’t named yet.

Walsh said PUC officials weren’t expecting the name feature to become popular. And they weren’t sure how many people, despite their good intentions, would follow through once they signed up.

“I thought, maybe they’ll just sit at their computer and do this,” Walsh said. “Click a few buttons and call it a day, and it would be armchair activism. But based on the amount of reception we’ve gotten and the attendance at our events, I believe these people are really cleaning their drains.”

One reason for the program’s effectiveness is that residents have already been sweeping their streets and keeping the drains clear in their neighborhoods for years. In a sense, people unofficially had adopted the drains before the program’s start, said Jesse Szwedko, a member of Code for San Francisco, a nonprofit that paired with the city to build an interactive map of drain locations.

But even he was blown away my the popularity of storm drain names, he said.

“There’s a lot of storm drain puns,” Szwedko said. “I didn’t even know those existed. But it makes sense. It helps endear whatever it is you’re adopting. You’re personifying your drain and that builds more of a motivation to take care of it, versus calling it Storm Drain No. 502.”

There are rules: The drain grates weigh 100 pounds and adopters are discouraged from trying to lift them. Any needles, construction debris or toxic waste should be reported to the city’s 311 service portal. And, if drain-tending fails, residents should report swollen drains to the agency. There are professionals who can clean the most clogged drains, Walsh said.

For her part, Silver is taking some good-natured ribbing from friends and family. Three recent texts she received from friends read: “Did you check your drain?” “How are things going?” “How’s your friend Dwayne?”

Her daughter, who lives in Los Angeles, calls her the Queen of San Francisco Sewers. But it doesn’t bother Silver.

“Well, yes, I am queen of the sewers,” she said. “I am proud of it. If there was a piece of litter in your yard or on the sidewalk, you would pick that up. So it makes sense to clean up your drain, too.”

Lizzie Johnson is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: ljohnson@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @LizzieJohnsonnn

Sign up

Those interested in adopting a drain can register online: https://adoptadrain.sfwater.org/