Wastewater treatment plants — both municipal publicly owned treatment works (POTWs) and industrial wastewater facilities — operate under some of the most demanding NPDES permit requirements of any discharge category. With daily and weekly sampling obligations, tight effluent limits, percent removal requirements, and monthly DMR deadlines, treatment plant operators need water quality software that keeps pace with the volume and complexity of their monitoring data.
Wastewater Treatment Compliance Challenges
How Software Supports Wastewater Plants
Multi-Point Monitoring
Track data at every monitoring point through the treatment process: raw influent, primary clarifier effluent, secondary effluent, tertiary/advanced treatment effluent, final discharge, and receiving water. Each point can have its own parameter list, sampling frequency, and comparison criteria.
Percent Removal Calculations
Most POTW permits require a minimum percent removal for BOD and TSS (typically 85%). The software automatically pairs influent and effluent samples by date, calculates percent removal for each sampling event and monthly averages, and flags periods where removal falls below the permit minimum.
Automated DMR Generation
Generate monthly DMRs with all required statistics: 30-day averages, 7-day averages, daily maximums, percent removal, and mass loading rates. The software handles geometric mean calculations for bacteria, accounts for non-detect values, and exports files ready for NetDMR submission.
Nutrient Tracking & Load Management
Track total nitrogen and total phosphorus against concentration limits, seasonal limits, and annual mass loading caps. Visualize nutrient trends over time, track cumulative loads against annual caps, and project whether the facility is on track to meet year-end requirements.
Process Optimization Data
Beyond compliance reporting, treatment plants use water quality software to monitor process performance: tracking dissolved oxygen levels, sludge age, mixed liquor suspended solids (MLSS), return activated sludge rates, and chemical feed dosing to optimize treatment efficiency.
Industrial Pretreatment Program Support
For POTWs with delegated pretreatment programs, the software can track industrial user permits, monitor self-monitoring data from significant industrial users (SIUs), compare results to local limits, and document enforcement actions — all within the same platform that manages the plant’s own discharge compliance.
Common Wastewater Permit Parameters
Wastewater NPDES permits typically require monitoring for a combination of conventional, non-conventional, and toxic pollutants:
- Conventional — BOD5, TSS, pH, fecal coliform / E. coli, oil & grease
- Nutrients — Ammonia nitrogen, total Kjeldahl nitrogen, nitrate/nitrite, total nitrogen, total phosphorus
- Metals — Copper, lead, zinc, mercury, cadmium, chromium, nickel (varies by facility)
- Other — Dissolved oxygen, temperature, chlorine residual, flow, whole effluent toxicity (WET)
Related Ecesis Solutions
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Compliance Obligations
Track all regulatory obligations and recurring deadlines.
Environmental Data
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Inspections & Audits
Mobile field inspections with corrective action tracking.
Ready to Streamline Your Treatment Plant Compliance?
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