A hard rain pours off the steep, Victorian roofs of Pacific Grove. It rushes into and over the gutters and down the drainpipes. It pools in the gardens and floods down the stairways. It rushes across the sidewalks. It overwhelms the sewer lines and gurgles up out of the stormwater grates. It flows down the streets toward the ocean. Always towards the ocean.

And as it flows downhill, the rain collects nitrogen and phosphorous off the roof, heavy metals from the gutters, cat feces from the garden, raccoon and human feces from the storm drains and sewers, and motor oil from the street. Encountering concrete and asphalt at every turn, this toxic brew flows downhill, gathering speed and mass until it and a thousand little rivers like it drain into the ever-receiving sea.

The principle hasn’t changed much since the Roman aqueduct. For millenia, the urban development of civilization has adhered to a simple strategy when it comes to stormwater runoff. Capture the water, shunt the water, put it in a trough or pipe, increase its velocity and send it away. “Away,” in most cases, means the nearest large body of water. Here on the Monterey Peninsula, that means the ocean.

Yet with increasing development and population density come a higher concentration of pollutants for the runoff to carry into the ocean. Considering that the population of the Monterey Peninsula is projected to grow by over 20 percent by the end of the decade, the time for solutions is now.

A July 24 advisory sent out by the Monterey County Health Department to warn residents of yet another beach closure is appended with a fitting quote from billionaire-philanthropist Warren Buffet: “The Noah rule: Predicting rain doesn’t count; building arks does.”