Water Treatment Plant

Water Treatment Plant 

Water treatment plants produce drinking water for public consumption or "industrial water" for manufacturing or other business operations.

Treatment often involves some combinations of:

• Filtering out sediment and disease-causing organisms
• Chemical treatment to remove excess minerals and other contaminants
• Further settling or filtration
• Final disinfection and chemical adjustment to reduce scaling or corrosion within the delivery system

WTP is responsible for ensuring that the hundreds of local public drinking water facilities in the state provide drinking water that is safe and reliable.

Water treatment plant operations often also produce wastewater that they must dispose of safely. In accordance with the federal Water Pollution Control Act and state Water Pollution Control laws, the Department of Ecology helps to ensure that the disposal of these waste waters causes no harm to the environment.

Ecology requires facilities that produce the majority of that waste water to have an NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) permit. NPDES permits contain specific requirements and conditions for permittee to protect rivers and other water bodies that receive waste water discharges.