Larry The H2O Hero will not be at the Democrat and Chronicle’s third annual Earth Day Rain Barrel giveaway next Saturday. Because he is a cartoon. But I think he’d approve of our effort to get people to reflect on their water use, water pollution and the local water shed. You may have seen Larry the H2O Hero — a blue-haired, spectacle-wearing homeowner who transforms into a caped crusader — affixed to local gutters. He reminds us to think about how what we do around our homes affects water quality. Industry and sewage treatment plants often come to mind when people think water pollution. But storm water carries the most significant source of pollution to many of our local waterways, according to the Water Education Collaborative. This coalition of local organizations is committed to water quality education and they run the H2O Hero campaign, for which Larry is the mascot. In urban and suburban areas, much land is covered by buildings, pavement and other surfaces that don’t allow water to soak in. When it rains, storm water runs along these impermeable surfaces and into gutters, picking up pollutants along the way. In most of the city of Rochester, storm water ends up in the sanitary sewer and is treated. Elsewhere, storm sewers dump filthy and untreated storm water right into the nearest waterway. In other words, April showers bring an unpleasant amount of dog poop, motor oil, fertilizer, bacteria, pesticides and other pollutants into the Genesee River and Lake Ontario. Here are a couple of ways to decrease storm water…