Pretreatment and Waste Acceptance
The District has been running an Industrial Pretreatment Program since 1986. Some of the activities aimed at major industrial users include annual inspections, compliance monitoring, issuing of permits, and general communications. Additional activities include DNR reporting, record keeping, training, and visits to non-permitted facilities.
Annual inspections and semi-annual compliance monitoring of permitted industries provide District staff the opportunity to meet the firms' representatives and view the industrial facilities. During inspections, spill prevention and pollution prevention issues are discussed. The technical support services available through the Solids and Hazardous Waste Education Center at the University of Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership are reviewed with industrial users. Issues concerning mercury in the environment, mercury-containing devices and pollution prevention programs are also discussed with industrial users.
Pollution prevention is an increasingly popular concept for industry as a way to minimize their impact on the environment--and especially on wastewater. Industries in the District's pretreatment program take measures to minimize the discharge of non-compatible pollutants to the sanitary sewer system through material substitutions, water reuse, the addition or improvement of treatment techniques, and through the segregation and contract hauling of regulated waste streams. In several cases, industries have totally eliminated or prevented all discharges of regulated wastewater to the sanitary sewer.
The District tests industrial discharges to monitor regulatory compliance by permitted firms. Such sites are sampled at least twice a year. Public notice is given to firms with limit violations, and also to those who are non-compliant for failure to submit required semi-annual reports by deadlines.