Arkansas Pretreatment Program

DEQ’s Pretreatment Program implements and enforces EPA’s national program. DEQ works closely with municipalities to protect local water quality from the threat of pollutants discharged into publicly owned treatment works (POTWs).

Protective sewage collection and treatment is important for any community’s environmental quality. POTWs may be designed to treat household (domestic) sewage, but the treatment plants also have industrial customers that may be discharging the most harmful pollutants.

Using proven pollution control technologies, most industries must pretreat their wastewater, removing pollutants to acceptable levels before discharging into a city’s system. Discharging or proposing to discharge industrial wastewater into a collection system connected to a POTW may require a permit from DEQ or from one of several Arkansas pretreatment cities that implement U.S. EPA /State approved Pretreatment Programs and issue their own industrial indirect discharge permits.

Industrial facilities discharging to or planning to discharge to a POTW without its own municipal pretreatment program should contact DEQ to determine whether an industrial discharge permit is required. Industrial facilities not located in a pretreatment city should still contact their non-pretreatment city to discuss the facility’s impact on the local treatment plant.

Pretreatment Forms for Municipalities

Select the appropriate category below.

EPA Pretreatment Program Documents and Links

The EPA has developed a guidance document for establishment of a municipal pretreatment program ordinance. EPA’s pretreatment website contains regulations, standards and resources.