The Federal Clean Water Act was enacted to eliminate discharges of pollutants into navigable waters to achieve water that is both “swimmable” and “fishable”. The focus of the federal program has been on direct municipal and industrial point sources that discharge to a receiving stream and on indirect industrial sources that discharge to a treatment facility. The Clean Water Act gave the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. E.P.A.) the authority to establish and enforce pretreatment standards for businesses and industries that discharge into a sewer system. Industrial wastewater can contain toxic pollutants that might not be removed at wastewater treatment facilities and therefore could pass into receiving streams and biosolids. The pretreatment regulations aim to remove toxic pollutants at the source of the industrial discharge so that they do not interfere with the treatment processes at the wastewater treatment facility.
The Preliminary Industrial Waste Survey in PDF format (View)
Industrial Discharge Permit Application in PDF format (72k) (View)
The Greater Lawrence Sanitary District (GLSD) established its Industrial Pretreatment Program (IPP) to regulate industrial discharges to the sewer system. The GLSD administers an EPA approved pretreatment program through its Rules and Regulations Covering Discharge of Wastewater, Drainage, Substances or Waste or local sewer use ordinance. These Rules and Regulations govern all users of the District’s treatment facility through the issuance of permits, control documents and through the enforcement of Federal pretreatment requirements and technically based local discharge limitations.
Businesses and Industries that are typically regulated are:
On any given day, water at the Greater Lawrence Sanitary District starts out filled with impurities, as shown in the first jar in the photograph above. After filtration and sanitation, the water is purified to a pollutant-free state, and then returned to the Merrimack River.
QUALITY ASSURANCE
The goal of the Greater Lawrence Sanitary District Laboratory is to generate the most precise, accurate and reproducible data possible in a timely and cost-efficient manner. The reliability and integrity of the sampling and analysis reflects directly on an excellent Quality Assurance/Quality Control (QA/QC) Program.
GLSD recognizes the need to provide data that is representative of the conditions in question and is suitable for making decisions that involve compliance with environmental standards, public health, safety and legal obligations.
For more details on the QA/QC Program please download the QualityAssurance Document.