Industrial Wastewater Surcharge
The Industrial Wastewater Surcharge Program recovers
costs associated with treating high-strength
wastewater from industrial users with discharge
permits.
High-strength
refers to industrial wastewater that has higher
concentrations of conventional pollutants than typical households. Industrial wastewater can cost
more for the County to treat because it can require
higher levels of oxygen, create more biosolids, or
require additional chemicals for treatment. The
Industrial Wastewater Surcharge is charged in addition
to the Sanitary District Unit Charge.
Onondaga County's wastewater treatment plants are
designed to treat conventional pollutants, and excess
treatment capacity is available to do so. Therefore,
the County levies the cost of this service on the
industrial users rather than imposing limits or
spreading the cost out on all users. To reduce or
eliminate their surcharge bill, some industrial users
have installed their own private wastewater treatment
systems.
How is the surcharge calculated?
WEP and each affected industry collect wastewater
samples that are used to calculate wastewater
strength. For the purpose of the surcharge program,
wastewater strength is calculated based upon the
concentrations of each of the following parameters:
5-day biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5)
Total suspended solids (TSS)
Total phosphorus (TP)
Total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN).
These values are put in the surcharge formula to
calculate the fee.
How to estimate a surcharge bill
WEP has developed an Excel spreadsheet to help you
to estimate the surcharge bill that your company could
receive based on the values that you input and current
County costs. Projected costs can be estimated by
changing the values for your industry or adjusting
County fees.
Click here to use the Excel spreadsheet to estimate your costs.
Surcharge formula
The formula involves subtracting a threshold value
from the concentration of surcharge parameters
discharged by your industry and multiplying those
values by the fee. The threshold value represents
domestic wastewater discharges. Therefore, wastewater
that exceeds the threshold (domestic) value is
considered high-strength wastewater and is subject to
a surcharge to recover the extra costs of treatment.
If the industrial wastewater shows concentrations of
conventional parameters below threshold values, it is
assumed that the unit charge is sufficient to cover
wastewater treatment costs, and there is no surcharge.
Example
A company's surcharge could be calculated as follows.
Given parameters
BOD5 threshold = 300 mg/L
Industry BOD5 = 500 mg/L
Industry flow = 1,000,000 gal/yr
BOD5 cost = $0.2459/lb
Conversion factor = 0.000008345
Example BOD5 surcharge
(500 - 300) x 1,000,000 x 0.00000834 x $0.2459 = $410.16
This process is repeated to calculate charges for TSS, TP, and TKN.
For more information, please call, 315-435-2260.
|