King County Industrial Waste annual report

2023 annual report

Read the 2023 annual report (5.6MB)

In 2023, violations by KCIW-regulated companies and facilities did not cause problems at King County’s wastewater treatment plants. Specifically, there were no NPDES exceptions for effluent discharges into Puget Sound at any of the plants attributed to an industrial facility. Additionally, metal concentrations in biosolids continued to meet the strictest U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards.

The following are highlights of KCIW activities in 2023:

• Issued 190 wastewater discharge approvals (new, renewed, and revised control documents, including letters of authorization, minor and major discharge authorizations, and waste discharge permits).
• Inspected and sampled all significant industrial users to meet the federal pretreatment requirement of once per year.
• Issued enforcement actions against those that violated requirements, including major actions involving significant noncompliance.
• Made significant, functional enhancements to the existing Pretreatment Information Management System database prior to a new project to translate the code base to a modern language and Web-based application.
• Initiated a new project with a consultant to update the surcharge allocation for the high strength waste cost recovery program.
• Formed three new work groups (Permit Writer’s, Enforcement, and Procedures Manual) to more effectively streamline, resolve, process, and document programmatic decisions.
• Started working on the creation of an engineering review design manual.