What You Don’t Know About Wastewater Regulations Could Put You At Risk

Say you’re minding your own business, year after year without incident. Suddenly, out of the blue you get hit with a steep fine from the Environmental Protection Agency. Maybe you never even saw it coming. What happened?

Most organizations don’t intend to run afoul of the law. But, of course, ignorance of the law excuses no one—especially when it comes to regulations governing clean water and wastewater. Lack of compliance can be expensive in a number of ways: fines, costs to remediate the challenge, and—perhaps more consequentially—the reputational cost with your customers.

How Compliance Gets Complicated

What makes compliance difficult is how laws and regulations can change from one year to the next. Without adequate water or wastewater expertise to guide your operations, all it takes is a sizeable spill or a storm to produce an accidental discharge that threatens water quality, public health, or the environment.

For example, a city in Indiana was fined $75,000 last year for CWA violations, one public utility in California faced over $200,000 in fines for wastewater effluent limitation violations, and the City of Flint, Michigan is still reeling from the public fallout of the water quality challenges they encountered last year.

The Case for Talent

Fines and legal fees can often be avoided with the right care and guidance from an experienced water and wastewater operations professional. waterTALENT is committed to helping America’s water and wastewater treatment and distributions facilities operate effectively and in compliance, through use of interim water and wastewater operators during local utility staff transitions or vacancies, all the while helping plants improve their performance and efficiency.

waterTALENT deploys personnel equipped with the necessary insurance coverage and licenses, as well as the skills and experience to precisely fulfill plant requirements in as little as 24 hours.

For plant owners and consultants seeking additional information, or operators seeking new opportunities, please visit us here or call us at (424) 832-7217.