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The Pretreatment Program

Welcome to the Sanitary Sewer Board’s Industrial Pretreatment Program. The program has the unique responsibility of monitoring and protecting the integrity of the biological processes at the Wastewater Treatment Plant while protecting the receiving stream from pass through event that would cause adverse effects to aquatic wildlife. This is achieved through the constant monitoring of the waste stream. Pretreatment means just that; pretreatment. 40CFR403 (an US EPA Code of Federal Regulation) is the blueprint that governs the Industrial Pretreatment Program that basically states that industries shall pre-treat the waste that enters the sanitary sewer to remove such items as oil and grease, zinc, silver and a variety of other metals.

Michael Abruzzino has been coordinating the program since last January and through his experience with stream monitoring and sampling, it continues to be one of the finest Pretreatment Programs in the State of West Virginia. The wastewater plant is the recipient of numerous environmental and operation awards. Much of this can be attributed to the efforts of the Pretreatment program.

The main goal of the program is to protect the environment. That’s quite an undertaking when you consider the industrial, commercial and residential waste that come to the treatment plant. The regulations from the US EPA, WV DEP and City of Fairmont Ordinance also provide the guidance for all wastewater treatment plant across the US. They provide a legal background that a coordinator can use to enforce compliance across the POTW receiving area and gives full permission to the coordinator to enter facilities which he deems necessary for inspection.