Water and Pollution Control Department

Non-Domestic Waste Pretreatment Program Home

The Ames Water Pollution Control (WPC) facility is designed to treat typical domestic wastewaters such as those generated by the average homeowner. These wastewaters generally do not have large chemical concentrations and typically are comprised of water with relatively low concentrations of biologically-treatable wastes.

Non-domestic wastewaters often contain compounds or concentrations of wastes that the WPC facility is not designed to treat. Facilities that generate non-domestic wastewaters sometimes have to pretreat their wastewaters before they discharge them to the City sanitary sewer system.

The goals of the pretreatment program are to protect the Water Pollution Control (WPC) Facility and municipal sanitary sewer system from wastewater components that may

pass through the treatment facility untreated into the receiving stream, the South Skunk River;
inhibit the treatment facility’s processes, many of which are biological;
contaminate the resulting biosolids or wastewater effluent;
reduce the ability of the treatment facility to recycle or reclaim wastewater and biosolids from the treatment system;
cause damage to or blockages in the municipal sanitary sewer system; or
potentially cause harm to workers in the sanitary sewer system.

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