From the JS Online banner ad, MMSD has set up a link to its own Web site. Kass can track the number of hits and see what people are interested in learning more about. In the past, MMSD operated a telephone hotline that handled a dozen calls a week. The Internet site produced as many as 4,221 hits a day last September. From April 8 to April 22 of this year, MMSD received 52,222 hits to its Web site, an average of 3,730 per day.
People are always on our site asking for more information.
Plus, not everybody reads the daily newspapers. The 2001 budget also includes funding for the district's rainwater reduction education program that's aimed at limiting the amount of rainwater flowing into the sanitary sewers. Spending thousands of dollars to educate customers on rainwater is far superior to expanding sanitary sewer capacity and spending millions of dollars, Kass said. It is not unusual for cities, counties or state agencies to spend millions of dollars on economic development programs or for energy utilities to allocate money toward energy conservation. Heck believes MMSD's hazardous waste and rainwater reduction programs are in the same category.