This guide is designed to address a broad range of industrial users violations of monitoring, reporting and treatment requirements that may range from relatively minor problems to very serious major violations. Each instance of noncompliance is considered a violation and sound enforcement policy will be to consider when determining whether a violation is significant or insignificant.
(A) Duration of the violation and compliance history of the IU.
(1) The Department Head will review the violation summary to evaluate the duration of the violation and the compliance history of the industrial user. Any exceedance of an applicable effluent limit or failure to meet the deadlines and conditions for reporting, monitoring, or treatment is a violation. The violation summary will be reviewed for at least one quarter to determine if the particular types of violations are isolated or recur in some type of pattern. The Department Head will also consider the enforcement response that was offered for the previous violations.
(2) Isolated violations will usually be attributed to a relatively simple problem that can be easily corrected. However, when several minor exceedances occur, either consecutively or several months apart, it may suggest that operating practices are inadequate to meet the limits and further pretreatment measures are needed.
(3) More aggressive enforcement actions will be taken against facilities that frequently exceed numerical pretreatment standards than those that report isolated exceedances (unless the isolated exceedances are large and troublesome).
(B) Apparent good faith of responsible industrial user personnel. If industrial user personnel appear to be attempting in good faith to comply with pretreatment requirements, City enforcement actions will obviously be on a more cooperative level than if industrial user personnel do not appear to be attempting to comply.
(1) City personnel are aware that the Clean Water Act requires extraordinary efforts to comply with its requirements in a timely way. Good faith will be measured against this standard:
Congress clearly expresses the efforts that are expected: The Act requires industry to take extraordinary efforts if the vital and ambitious goals of the Congress are to be met. This means that business as usual is not enough. Prompt, vigorous and in many cases, expensive pollution control measures must be initiated and completed as promptly as possible. In assessing the good faith of a discharger, the discharger is to be judged against these criteria. Moreover, it is an established principle, which applies to this act, that administrative and judicial reviews are sought on the discharger’s own time. Legislative history of the Clean Water Act No. 95 14, vol. 3, p. 463
(C) Definition of significant noncompliance.
(1) Instances of significant noncompliance are defined as follows:
(a) Violations of wastewater discharge limits will be evaluated based on the magnitude and/or frequency of the violations of average limits over a six month period. These violations will be evaluated on the basis of individual parameters and monitoring locations.
1. Technical review criteria (TRC).
a. Thirty three percent (33%) or more of the measurements exceed the same daily maximum limit or the same average limit by more than the TRC in a six month period.
b. Group I for conventional pollutant (BOD, TSS, fats, oil and grease and pH), TRC factor = 1.4 x parameter limitation value.
c. Group II for all other pollutants, TRC factor = 1.2 x parameter limitation value. (Except pH and temperature).
2. Chronic violations are where sixty six percent or more of the measurements exceed, the same daily maximum limit or the same average limit in a six month period (any magnitude of exceedance).
3. Any other violation of an effluent limit (average or daily maximum) which the City believes has the potential to cause or has caused interference with the POTW performance capability (e.g., sludge loads) or passes through the plant in unacceptable quantities (e.g., exceeds water quality standards or impairing beneficial uses).
(b) Violations of compliance schedule milestones, for planning, engineering, starting construction, completing construction and attaining final compliance by 60 days or more after the schedule date.
(c) Failure to provide reports for compliance schedules, self-monitoring data, baseline monitoring reports, or permit application data within 30 days from the due date specified in the ordinance, permit or enforcement order.
(d) Knowingly reporting inaccurate information or falsifying data.
(e) Any other violation or group of violations which the City or Department Head considers to be significant.
(D) The harm caused by the violation. Violations are evaluated to determine the suspected or measured adverse environmental impact and rated accordingly.
(Ord. 4-1999, passed 3-8-99; Am. Ord. 12-2012, passed 8-13-12; Am. Ord. 16-2016, passed 7-11-16)