Users shall provide necessary wastewater treatment
or pretreatment as required to comply with this chapter and shall
achieve compliance with all National Categorical Pretreatment Standards
within the time limitations. Any facilities required to pretreat wastewater
to a level acceptable to the City shall be provided, operated and
maintained continuously and effectively at the user's expense. Detailed
plans showing the pretreatment facilities and operating procedures
shall be submitted to the Commissioner of Public Works and/or the
Director of Utilities or their designee for review, and prior approval
shall be obtained before construction of the facility. The review
of such plans and operating procedures will in no way relieve the
user from the responsibility of modifying the facility as necessary
to produce an effluent acceptable to the City under the provisions
of this chapter. Any subsequent changes in the treatment or pretreatment
facilities or method of operation shall be reported to and be acceptable
to the Commissioner of Public Works and/or the Director of Utilities
or their designee prior to the user's initiation of the changes. New
sources subject to categorical pretreatment standards shall install
and have in operating condition and shall start up all pollution control
equipment required to meet applicable pretreatment standards before
beginning to discharge. Within the shortest feasible time [not to
exceed 90 days], new sources must meet all applicable pretreatment
standards.
All records relating to compliance with pretreatment
standards shall be made available to officials of the EPA or the approval
authority upon request. The confidentiality of user information and
data submitted as necessary for any application, record, report, plan
or other document required by this chapter shall be governed by the
Freedom of Information Law (§§ 84 through 90 of the
Public Officers Law of the State of New York) and by other applicable
state or federal statutes and regulations. Any requests by a user
to keep specific data and information confidential must be made in
writing at the time of submission. Wastewater constituents and characteristics
submitted to the City shall be available to the public without restriction.
When requested in writing by the person furnishing a report, those
portions of a report which might disclose trade secrets or secret
processes shall not be made available for inspection by the public.
This information shall be made available upon written request to governmental
agencies for uses related to this chapter, the National Discharge
Elimination System (NPDES) permit, state disposal system permit, state
pretreatment program and/or for use by the state or any state agency
in judicial review or enforcement proceedings involving the person
finishing the report.
The City shall make public, at a minimum of
once annually, a list of industrial users which had, over the previous
12 months, significantly violated the requirements or conditions of
this chapter or any national pretreatment standards or other pretreatment
requirements. The City reserves the right to take whatever means necessary
to notify the public of a significant violation or shall, at a minimum,
list all significant violators with a description of the violation
in the daily newspaper with the largest circulation in the City. For
the purposes of this section, a significant violation [significant
noncompliance (SNC)] shall be a violation which meets one or more
of the following criteria:
A. Violations of wastewater discharge limits.
(1) Chronic violations. 66% or more of the measurements
exceed the same daily maximum limit or the same average limit in a
six-month period (any magnitude of exceedance).
(2) Technical review criteria (TRC) violations. 33% or
more of the measurements exceed the same daily maximum limit or the
same average limit by more than the TRC in a six-month period.
(3) Any other violation(s) of effluent limit (average
or daily maximum) that the Control Authority believes has caused alone
or in combination with other discharge, interference or pass through
or endangered the health of the sewage treatment personnel or the
public.
(4) Any discharge of a pollutant that has caused imminent
endangerment to human health/welfare or to the environment and has
resulted in a POTW's exercise of its emergency authority to halt or
prevent such a discharge.
B. Violations of compliance schedule milestones contained
in a local control mechanism or enforcement order for starting construction,
completing construction and attaining final compliance by 90 days
or more after the schedule date.
C. Failure to provide reports for compliance schedules,
self-monitoring data or categorical standards (baseline monitoring
reports, ninety-day compliance reports and periodic reports) within
30 days from the due date.
D. Failure to accurately report noncompliance.
E. Any other violation or group of violations that the
City considers to be significant.