Industrial Pretreatment Program Audits of Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plants: What to Expect, How to Prepare, and Common Findings
Training Video
Pretreatment programs protect municipal wastewater treatment plants from operational interference or pass-through due to non-sanitary pollutants from industrial and commercial sources. In this webinar, EPA presenters describe the steps that are involved by EPA or the State in conducting a pretreatment audit of a POTW. Equally significant, the presenters advise what POTWs can do to prepare for an EPA audit of its authorized pretreatment program. Both small and large system operators and program coordinators will benefit from the information, as well as those POTWs that do not yet have a pretreatment program but may need one.
Date of Recording: September 22, 2021 (1-2:30 pm Eastern)
Presenters
-
Amelia Whitson is a Physical Scientist in EPA's Pacific Southwest Regional Office (Region 9) in San Francisco. She has worked in Region 9’s NPDES Permit Office for 12 years, writing NPDES permits, providing technical permitting support to state environmental agencies, and serving as the Region 9 Pretreatment Coordinator. As Pretreatment Coordinator, she is responsible for managing EPA’s oversight of industrial wastewater pretreatment in Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, R9 Tribal Lands, and the Pacific Island Territories. Amelia holds a B.A. in Environmental Earth Science from the University of California, Berkeley.
-
Justin (Jay) Pimpare works in the Municipal Assistance Unit and is the Regional Pretreatment Coordinator for the six states within EPA New England’s Regional Office. Jay oversees and coordinates all pretreatment activities throughout the region and has played an integral role in providing technical assistance to wastewater treatment plants related to emergency response and pretreatment program implementation issues. Prior to his position as Regional Pretreatment Coordinator, Jay was a multi-media investigator with EPA’s Investigations & Analysis Unit at EPA’s Regional Laboratory. Jay has been involved in the pretreatment program since joining EPA in 1993 and has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Lowell, Massachusetts.
-
David R. Phillips has served as EPA’s national pretreatment program coordinator for Region 4 since 2001, assisting authorized state and local coordinators in the Southeast with program implementation and oversight, as well as assisting industry. He also serves as a senior civil inspector and enforcement officer in the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) program and has been part of the Region 4 effort to abate sewer overflows since its inception. Mr. Phillips earned his BS/BS in Biological Sciences and Environmental Science from Emory University, and his ME in Environmental Engineering from the University of Florida.
-
Jan Pickrel is the National Pretreatment Program Coordinator at EPA and coordinates a diverse set of activities involving industrial wastewater programs, including technology-based effluent guidelines and categorical standards, biosolids, water security and emergency response planning, and emerging contaminants of concern. She has taught many courses on the pretreatment program across the nation, both in person and via webinar.
Prior to coming to EPA in 1997, Ms. Pickrel worked for 13 years in Virginia Department of Environmental Quality’s (VDEQ) Northern Virginia Regional Office, where she served as the Pretreatment Coordinator and Industrial NPDES Coordinator in the region’s Virginia Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Program. During her tenure at VDEQ, she had also served as the Chief Regional Geologist and has extensive experience in land application of biosolids, ground water and surface water investigations, and oil spill remediation efforts.