Industrial Pretreatment: Program Framework and Prohibited Discharges
Why this is a separate discipline
An industrial wastewater operator is not running a small municipal plant. A municipal plant
receives domestic sewage of fairly predictable strength and composition and treats it
biologically. An industrial facility produces whatever its process produces - concentrated,
variable, often batch, sometimes toxic, frequently at an extreme pH, and containing substances
that no biological process will touch. The unit processes are different, the chemistry is
different, and the regulatory framework is different.
Recognising that difference is the point. Material built around activated sludge process control
- food-to-microorganism ratio, sludge age, return and waste sludge rates, sludge volume index -
describes a plant most industrial pretreatment operators do not run.
What the progr