Industrial Wastewater BMPs

Industrial Wastewater BMPs

Industrial BMPs are considered an adjunct to engineered treatment systems. Typical BMPs include operator training, maintenance practices, and spill control procedures for treatment chemicals. There are also many BMPs available which are specific to particular industrial processes, for example:

• source reduction practices in metal finishing industries (e.g. substituting less toxic solvents or using water-based cleaners);
• in the chemical industry, capturing equipment washdown waters for recycle/reuse at various process stages;
• in the paper industry, using process control monitoring to optimize bleaching processes, and reduce the overall amount of bleach used.^[8]

[edit] Stormwater Management BMPs

Stormwater management BMPs are control measures taken to mitigate changes to both quantity and quality of runoff caused through changes to land use. Generally BMPs focus on increased impervious surfaces from development. BMPs are designed to reduce stormwater volume, peak flows, and/or nonpoint source pollution through evapotranspiration, infiltration, detention, and filtration or biological and chemical actions.
Stormwater BMPs can be classified as "structural" or "non-structural."
Early designs of structural BMPs were often basins or ponds that were designed as flood control structures. They temporarily hold back a volume of water (detention basin), or contain a volume of water for extended periods, or permanently (retention basin). Some flood control designs were found to incidentally control pollutants, and designs have been refined over the years to improve control of pollutants in stormwater runoff. Filtration systems were also used to control stormwater pollutants; in these systems a filter medium such as sand is used to trap pollutants, and effluent is discharged to surface waters. Sometimes these systems are used in tandem at a site to provide optimal control of stormwater volumes and pollutant removal. Detention and retention ponds, and a related design, constructed wetlands, are still widely used across the United States.^[9]
Some of the more recent structural BMP designs direct stormwater into groundwater rather than discharging to surface waters. These include bioinfiltration or bioretention systems (also called rain gardens), pervious concrete, porous asphalt, and infiltration trenches. Green roofs are also considered stormwater BMPs; in these designs the objective is to retain stormwater in a roof structure and/or dissipate the water through evapotranspiration. These practices are generally used in Low Impact Development (LID) applications.^[10]
Examples of non-structural BMPs are

• minimizing use of pesticides, fertilizers, road salt;
• municipal storm drain maintenance (catch basin cleaning, street and parking lot sweeping);
• educational and outreach programs.

In some situations these non-structural practices may be more cost-effective at keeping pollutants out of receiving streams than installing and operating structural BMPs.^[11]