Federal water regs kick in for Kalispell businesses

Kalispell's 20,000-some population means industries soon may have to start pretreating their wastewater in order to comply with federal guidelines.

With this month's completion of the two-year upgrade and expansion to the city's wastewater treatment plant, Kalispell now is poised to handle a bigger business base.

In turn, that triggers a higher level of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency guidelines that must be in place when more industry and commercial waste flows into the sewer plant.

Rebecca Bodnar, industrial pretreatment coordinator and a chemist at the plant, explained at the City Council's work session Monday night that the city's five-year permit issued by the state - following EPA guidelines - requires the new compliance standards.

She presented a 46-page draft law that lays out the minimum regulations for Kalispell to comply with those standards, protect local industries and protect the city itself.

The most noticeable change deals with large industrial use. The expanded population and the city's treatment capacity kicks in the federal requirement for industries to set up their own pre-treatment plans.

Each industry will have to choose from a spectrum of approved methods to filter out its own pollutants before sending waste downstream to the treatment plant. Businesses such as restaurants, which already know they must have grease traps, won't feel much of a change with this new law.

Public Works Director Jim Hansz explained the EPA's rationale that, with a growing population and business base, there's a greater chance of chrome plating, battery plating and similar toxic wastes making their way into the sewer plant unless industries install on-site pretreatment.

The federal code says the city now must have a wastewater pretreatment program. That program deals with sewer use, pretreatment, discharge permits, reporting, monitoring and enforcement.

Bodnar said the city had surveyed local firms to gauge their reaction to the new requirements, and got a very positive response that indicated the industrial community accepts the changes.

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com