Salinas rolls out revised street‑sweeping routes, warns of August citations after 90‑day warning period

City staff on Tuesday described a multi‑year effort to revise Salinas’ street‑sweeping program to reduce pollutants flowing into local waterways, and said a 90‑day warning period that began in May will be followed by enforcement with $45 citations starting in August 2025.

Heidi Nigamire, the city’s stormwater program manager, told the City Council that the program’s goal is to meet state and federal water quality requirements by getting sweepers to the curb where trash and sediment accumulate. “To date in 2025, we removed almost 1,100 tons of debris from our streets,” Nigamire said during a staff presentation that summarized monitoring, sampling and outreach carried out since 2021.

The city’s revised sweeping plan groups streets into 22 routes and requires sweeping on alternate sides of many streets on different days to give residents a reasonable window to move cars. Parking restrictions on high‑priority streets will be limited to four‑hour windows, Nigamire said. The selected pilot area — chosen because it drains to an existing water‑quality monitoring station — was signed in May; staff said it was chosen in part because Montebello already had signs installed.

Why it matters: Under the federal Clean Water Act and California’s Porter‑Cologne Water Quality Control Act, municipalities that discharge to…