An on-site wastewater treatment system consists of the pretreatment and the final treatment and dispersal components. When selecting the appropriate technology for these components, the wastewater source and recieving environment must be evaluated. All of the on-site wastewater treatment technologies have specific operational parameters and performance criteria regarding their ability to remove various contaminants.

The goals for the on-site wastewater treatment system are to accept the wastewater from the facility, remove the contaminants from the wastewater before it reaches our surface water and groundwater resources and potential for reusing the effluent. These goals provide the basis for selecting the technologies used to manage the wastewater.

An important consideration when selecting, sizing nad installing pretreatment systems is the frequency, complexity, and critical nature of monitoring, operation and maintenance tasks. If a pretreatment technology is selected to meet a specific performance criteria, the operation and maintenance tasks must be performed to ensure proper operation of the pretreatment component.

Please address any questions to Dr. David Lindbo.

This page created by
Roland O. Coburn, Research Technician I on 1/8/03.