Municipal Wastewater Management

This chapter discusses the municipal wastewater is the general term applied to the liquid collected in sanitary sewers and treated in a municipal plant. The chemical characteristics that are of interest are toxic metals and nutrients being discharged into the water. The physical characteristics that are of concern to the water environment can basically be described as any organic matter entering a water source. The total amount of each parameter accumulated in wastewater is referred to as the mass loading and is given the units of pounds per day. The addition of CBOD and NBOD is given the term ultimate BOD and it usually takes 20-30 days to complete a measurement. Tertiary treatment refers to combinations of all three; this is discussed in the last section. Municipal wastewater treatment plants are mandated by the federal government to provide secondary treatment to comply with the final effluent discharge to the receiving waters.