Industrial Pretreatment Program

General Program Information

The Industrial Pretreatment Program (IPP) in St. Joseph is required by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources and is necessary to prevent harm to the City's Water Protection Facility (WPF) and the Missouri River. The IPP program helps control wastewater discharges from Industrial Users (IU) to the WPF to ensure that incompatible pollutants do not interfere with the treatment process and that untreatable pollutants do not pass through the WPF to the Missouri River. This is accomplished by the issuance of Wastewater Discharge Permits to Significant Industrial Users (SIU) that limit the volume and strength of discharged wastewater and that require the implementation of pollution prevention practices and operation and maintenance of wastewater pretreatment facilities. SIUs must conduct routine self-monitoring of their wastewater discharges and report compliance status to Water Protection. Additionally, IPP staff conducts routine surveillance monitoring and inspections of SIUs to monitor permit compliance.

High Strength Pollutant Surcharge Program

Water Protection's IPP staff conducts daily and weekly surcharge monitoring of several IUs in St. Joseph that discharge wastewater with pollutant strengths higher than normal domestic sewage. The analytical results from this monitoring are used to calculate sewer surcharges, paid by the IU, that cover the additional cost to treat their high strength wastewater.

Hauled Wastewater Program

The WPF accepts hauled wastewater that has been removed from residential septic and holding tanks as well as Fats, Oils, & Grease that has been removed from restaurant grease interceptors in the St. Joseph service area. Certain hauled industrial and other non-domestic wastewaters may also be accepted by the WPF. Conditional approval for these wastewaters is only granted following application by the generator and verification by IPP staff that the discharge will meet all narrative and numeric pollutant limitations in City Code.