With white gloves and a grim expression, Jessica Oehlerking fished out discarded scrunchies and empty water bottles from storm drains.

The 8-year-old Oak Hollow Elementary student and her fellow second- and fourth-graders cleaned out the dirt and debris clogging up drains during recent rainstorms hitting Draper and Sandy cities.

"I had a dream once with people littering," said Oehlerking, a second-grade student. "This guy came up and said, 'If you litter one more time, you'll go to jail.'"

Teachers and parent volunteers at Oak Hollow led students through the winding streets of Draper to eight different storm drains where they shoveled out trash and grass that was collecting in the drains from mowed lawns.

Recent rainstorms hitting Draper and Sandy have pushed drainage clean-up crews to work harder at eliminating the excess grass, dirt and debris clogging up the drains. During abundant rainstorms, the drainage systems flow loads of water into detention ponds, which helps cities avoid water overflowing and flooding the streets.

"We've had quite a bit of rain lately," said Brad Watson, streets and storm water foreman for Draper City. "The Bear Hills area had some mudslides. It's a full-time job maintaining the system. Plastic water bottles and soda bottles get thrown out of the vehicles. It just all goes downhill to the gutter inlets."

To solve some littering problems, Leighann Gilson, storm water education specialist for Cottonwood Heights, said that the city is launching a Web site where people can report illegal dumping of trash and toxic waste. The site, which will run on the city's Web site next week, will also offer maps of neighborhoods and project proposals for local schools and Boy Scout troops to work on.

"When a lot of fertilizer washes in to detention ponds, you get a lot of plant growth," said Gilson, who helped organized the Oak Hollow project on Monday. "With so much fertilizer, there's huge amounts of plant growth that clogs up the drainage from the detention ponds, especially with grass clippings."

Gilson has two children who cleaned up neighborhood storm drains and said her kids, like the 50 others who spent an hour cleaning out clogged drains, learned valuable lessons about what happens when people litter.

"I get in lots of trouble when I don't clean my room," said 10-year-old Oliver Drenth. "My parents would be pretty mad if they saw these (drains). We drink from this water. You don't want to drink garbage."

When the dirt comes down and clogs the pipes, the city has to take loaders onto the detention ponds or lose volume in the ponds, said Stephen Linde, parks supervisor for Draper City.