The national industrial pretreatment program is a component of the NPDES program. It is a cooperative effort of federal, state, and local environmental regulatory agencies established to protect water quality. Similar to how EPA authorizes the NPDES permit program to state, tribal, and territorial governments to perform permitting, administrative, and enforcement tasks for discharges to surface waters (NPDES program), EPA and authorized NPDES state pretreatment programs approve local municipalities to perform permitting, administrative, and enforcement tasks for discharges into the municipalities’ publicly owned treatment works (POTWs). The program is designed to:
- protect POTWs publicly owned treatment works. A municipal or public service district sewage treatment system. infrastructure, and
- reduce conventional and toxic pollutant levels discharged by industries and other nondomestic wastewater sources into municipal sewer systems and into the environment.
Learn about the National Industrial Pretreatment Program on EPA’s extensive IPP website, which reviews Standards and Links to Regulation.