Flexible Approaches to Industrial Pretreatment Compliance

One often overlooked impact on wastewater treatment plant treatment performance is the impact of industrial users. Historically, pollutants such as toxic metals are easier to target for pretreatment regulations, but when wastewater performance upsets are caused by unconventional pollutants or by a group of industrial users that, in isolation, do not create an issue but in aggregate can cause upsets, flexible approaches to developing an industrial pretreatment program are required. Our presentation will highlight two projects that took flexible approaches to industrial pre-treatment. In the first example, a small tourist town that had seen an explosion of breweries was beginning to have performance upsets tied to slug discharges. In our second example, an industrial discharger’s effluent contained an abrasive material resulting in excessive wear on wastewater treatment equipment. Overall, the two projects provide example approaches for implementing IPP programs that assist facilities in regulating industrial users to prevent performance upsets.