The National Pretreatment Program is a cooperative effort of federal, state, and local regulatory environmental agencies established to protect water quality. The program is designed to reduce the level of potentially toxic pollutants discharged by industry and other non-domestic wastewater sources into municipal sewer systems, and thereby, reduce the amount of pollutants released into the environment from these sources.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has delegated DEQ the authority to approve pretreatment programs at the local level and oversee state-wide pretreatment activities. The communities approved to implement the pretreatment program have the legal authority to issue industrial user permits, conduct inspections of industrial and commercial sources, sample industrial discharges and enforce regulations. These programs also routinely perform self-monitoring to ensure the protection of worker safety, the sewage treatment plant operations, biosolids, and water quality.