GLWA handling industrial wastewater treatment

The Bloomfield Township Board of Trustees on Monday, August 10, unanimously passed a resolution to have the Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA) oversee the township's Industrial Pretreatment Program (IPP), previously handled by the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD). GLWA implements and enforces an Industrial Pretreatment Program to regulate discharge of commercial and industrial waste and wastewater. IPPs are a component of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) working as a cooperative effort of federal, state, and local environmental regulatory agencies to protect water quality under the Clean Water Act. The goal is to protect publicly-owned treatment works and reduce conventional and toxic pollutant levels discharged by industries and other non-domestic wastewater sources into municipal sewer systems and into the environment. Bloomfield Township has had an ordinance in place since 1989 to address discharge of commercial and industrial wastewater, which used to be delegated to the city of Detroit under DWSD. Bloomfield Township Public Works Manager Katie Fotherby informed the board that the only change of note was language had been added to the rules and regulations regarding Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) compounds. A resolution was passed last November by the GLWA to add the language to their rules to enforce for PFAS. Fotherby said that at this time the new PFAS language would not affect any of the township’s commercial accounts and so far there had been no industrial sites in Bloomfield Township that have been identified as being contributors of PFAS. GLWA is asking all communities who contribute to the wastewater as part of the Evergreen Farmington Sewerage Disposal System to pass a resolution adopting the full, updated rules by early September. Fotherby emphasized that these were not new rules and regulations, but to allow GLWA to be the ones to continue to administer and enforce this program going forward.