| Contents Notes |
Recognizing the significance of the noncompliance problem and the ineffectiveness of the current federal enforcement programs, the Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), undertook a comprehensive national study of publicly owned municipal treatment plants in 1975. This study was to identify and quantify the specific causes of inadequate performance and to formulate recommendations for improvement. Corollary objectives of the study were to identify future research needs and to demonstrate methods of improved performance. The full report deals with the second phase of the two-part study; the findings of the first phase were published in EPA reports 600/2-79-078 and 600/2-79-034. Conclusions and recommendations of the second phase were based on comprehensive evaluations conducted at 23 treatment facilities. Of 70 potential problem areas evaluated, the 10 highest ranked, based on frequency of occurrence and severity of impact, were operator application of concepts and testing to process control, sludge wasting and return, process control testing, process controllability, technical guidance for process control adjustments, industrial loading, sewage treatment understanding, adequacy of O&M manual, training, and infiltration/ inflow. In a critical evaluation of the data, it was noted that at each treatment facility a combination of factors limiting performance was always observed and that a single cause of poor performance at any one facility was never observed. Because there is an interrelationship between performance limiting factors and corrective programs, and because most existing correction programs focus on single problems only, a new approach that addresses all problems at a single facility was developed as more effective in improving existing plant performance. This approach is called a Composite Correction Program {CCP). The purpose of the CCP is to eliminate all the performance limiting factors at a plant through the implementation of the correction recommendations that are made as a part of the comprehensive evaluation |
