Have you ever seen one of those big tanks or containers at construction sites & wondered what they were for. Some are a round & look like silos; some look like shipping containers & they often have ladders and walkways around the top. I’ve even seen some marked with the company name Rain for Rent, which I find intriguing. Say what? Who would want to rent rain in the Pacific Northwest?

Well, there just happens to be one of these things on the construction site in Mill Creek Plaza. It is green & is of the “cargo container” variety. It has a ladder up the side & a railing around the top. I’ve wondered if they are for emergency haz-mat decontamination or something. You never know until you ask, right?

Well, I didn’t have it exactly right, but it does turn out they are for environmental purposes. These tanks can be used for a variety of reasons, but in this case it turns out this tank is there to collect surface run-off from construction site. If it rains or if the contractors are using water, incidental construction materials could be washed through & from the site. We wouldn’t want that going into our storm drains to the streams & creeks.

Soooo, in this case the surface run-off water drains into a special collection pond built on the site. It is then pumped into the tank where it is stored and/or filtered until it can be safely removed from the site. Do tell.