1989-08-28 Regular Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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e e The City of La Porte currently has an Industrial Waste Program in place. This program is supported by Ordinances No. 1221 and 1357. Ordinance No. 1221 was instituted by City Council on July 16, 1980 and No. 1357 amended this ordinance on March 2, 1982. The current intensified Industrial Waste Program was begun in 1984 with the issuance of permits to the large,and potentially polluting, industrial users of the sanitary sewer system. The current program has been successful in eliminating shock loads and plant kills at the treatment plant. To date, there has been no plant kills nor major plant upsets since 1984. Prior to that time the plant had periodic trouble with shock loads causing upsets and there had been two (2) plant kills that necessitated completely reseeding the biological portion of the treatment process. Reseeding is a time consuming process and can be very expensive. Additionally, the plant is not able to meet the minimum requirements of the discharge permits issued by the Texas Water Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency. The failure to conform to the permit requirements could have resulted in fines being levied against the City of La Porte similar to the one recently given the City of Houston. However, the most damaging of all results in a plant kill is the discharging of untreated or partiallly treated wastewater into the surrounding environment. Beginning in December, 1988, the City Golf Course began using treated wastewater to irrigate the fairways and greens. This has proved to be a very successful re-use of a resource that is normally discharged with no benefit. There is a drawback to this use of the plant effluent. The water pumped to the golf course must not contain any element that might cause damage to the vegetation. Close watch must be kept on the incoming flow of wastewater to insure that no toxic chemicals or hazardous materials are present. The City's investment in the golf course is very substantial and must be protected. The intensified Industrial Waste Program will assist in the control of the contents of the sanitary sewer system and help to safegaurd this investment. Some industries are currently not allowed to discharge into the sanitary sewer system under the guidelines of the current Industrial Waste Ordinances due to the presence of a prohibited substance in their wastewater effluent. There have been changes in federal regulations concerning the allowable concentration of substances and, also, the prohibited discharges that have not been reflected in the ordinances. Some prohibited substances have been added and others removed. The concentrations allowed have raised in some cases and lowered in others. The revised ordinance would allow the City to determine the allowable concentrations in accordance with the current federal regulations. This might allow the City to accept some industries that we would not be able to allow to discharge into the system.