All News Releases By Date

U.S. EPA presents prestigious national water award to San Leandro; The city placed second in the nation in wastewater pretreatment category

Release Date: 11/13/2006
Contact Information: Mark Merchant, (415) 947-4297

(SAN FRANCISCO 11-13-06 – )The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today announced the city of San Leandro has received a second-place award for its outstanding and innovative achievements in wastewater treatment and pollution prevention.

Alexis Strauss, the director of the EPA's Water Division for the Pacific Southwest region, presented the national award to the San Leandro City Council at its regular board meeting.

“With this award, EPA recognizes San Leandro for its exemplary pretreatment program that controls and regulates industrial wastewater streams,” said Alexis Strauss, director of the Water Division in the EPA’s San Francisco Office. “San Leandro has an outstanding program, focused on controlling pollution at its source; this keeps our waters clean and protects the San Francisco Bay.”

“We congratulate San Leandro for its excellent program and winning the U.S. EPA’s national award. The Water Board also recognized the city's achievements in March 2006 with a Water Quality Excellence Award. The city goes above and beyond requirements by promoting environmental green business practices both within its own departments as well as commercial establishments in its jurisdiction.” said Bruce Wolfe, executive officer of the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board.

The EPA’s pretreatment awards recognize municipalities that effectively implement this complex regulatory program that ensures industrial waste streams are being treated before entering the nation’s waters. Award recipients implement measures that go beyond the base pretreatment program, and demonstrate innovation in implementing the program.

EPA’s National Pretreatment Program has led the way to dramatically reduce or eliminate discharges of pollutants to sanitary sewer systems and to the nation's water bodies. The Program controls a complex array of industrial wastestreams to prevent interference or pass–through of municipal treatment system processes. Without these controls, a number of harmful pollutants could make their way into the nations’ waters. Federal, state, and local partnerships are central to the successful implementation of the Program.

For more information, visit: http://epa.gov/region9/water/pretreatment/index.html