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Pretreatment
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National Information
Allegheny County Sanitary Authority
in Pennsylvania
Industry and businesses use water in many ways to manufacture products and provide services. Companies frequently discharge their resulting dirty water into underground pipes that lead to wastewater treatment plants that were only designed to treat municipal wastewater (dirty water coming from homes). Because, in some cases these treatment plants will not be able to adequately treat this industrial wastewater, businesses are required to "pretreat" their wastewater to remove harmful contaminants before it is discharged into the municipal wastewater treatment plant.
The General Pretreatment Regulations, 40 CFR Part 403, were established in the early 1980's to help municipal sewage treatment plants (known as "publicly owned treatment works" or "POTWs") control industrial discharges to the sewers. EPA's Pretreatment Program has dramatically reduced the variety and quantity of pollutants (PDF) (4 pp, 249K, About PDF) going through our municipal wastewater treatment plants to our nation's waters. In addition, the program has reduced the pollutants in municipal sewage sludge, allowing this material to be used to fertilize soil.
Problems that may occur when industrial wastewaters are discharged into sewage treatment systems
EPA’s Pretreatment Program in the Mid-Atlantic Region regulates about 1,900 significant and categorical industries. The program is managed by EPA in Delaware, the District of Columbia, and Pennsylvania and by the states (with oversight by EPA) in Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. Federal, state, and local partnerships are key to the successful implementation of EPA's Pretreatment Program.
