Blythe Municipal Code Ch. 13.08 Sewers—use Regulations

Unless the context specifically indicates otherwise, the meaning of the terms used in this chapter shall be as follows:

A. "Discharge to the ground" means discharge of wastewater to or into the soil.

B. "Exchange type water conditioning apparatus" means water conditioning apparatus that is removed from the premises upon which it normally operates and is regenerated at a commercial regeneration plant when in need of regeneration.

C. "Floatable hydrocarbon oil" means the amount of hydrocarbon oil floating to the surface of a sample of the water under the same conditions as prescribed in the definition of "floatable oil and grease."

D. "Floatable oil and grease" means the oil and grease floating to the surface of a sample of water when it is retained for one hour in a quiescent condition in a vessel with vertical walls, filled to the depth of thirty centimeters.

E. "Hydrocarbon substances" means petroleum hydrocarbon substances, as may be defined from time to time, by the Federal Environmental Protection Agency or in the absence thereof, by the California Regional Water Quality Control Board.

F. "Industrial wastewater" means the wastewater arising from or associated with an industrial operation. Such operation shall be understood to include the following: Production or refining of petroleum; production, processing, packing or canning of fruits, vegetables, meat or beverages; laundering of clothes in public laundries, public self-service laundries, or hospitals; production of fertilizer, keeping of livestock or poultry and operation of dairies; production or dying textiles; production of soap or other detergents or chemicals; production and processing of plastics; cleaning of tanks, tank cars or barrels; plating or other processing of metals; processing or reclamation of refuse; all kinds of similar manufacturing, processing and servicing operations.

G. "Operation" includes the washing of equipment or spaces used in industrial operations.

H. "Person" means any individual, firm, company, association, society, corporation, or group and includes the plural as well as the singular.

I. "Public sewer" means any sewer located in or maintained by the city in which all owners of abutting property have equal rights. The term as used in this chapter does not include storm drains or channels for conveyance of natural surface waters.

J. "Public works director" means the public works director of the city or his authorized representative or deputy.

K. "Plumbing official" means the public works director of the city or his authorized representative or deputy.

L. "Total oil and grease" means the amount of residue extracted by the Partition-Gravimetric Method No. 502A, described in the 14th Edition of "Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and Waste Water."

M. "Water supply" means the city's annual average water supply serving the area tributary to the city's main sewage treatment plant. "Water supply" also means the average annual supply actually served to a specific establishment or location as determined by testing and compositing samples and analysis approved by the director of community service.

(Ord. 650 § 1, 1988: Ord. 548 § 2, 1979)

Except as provided in this chapter, it is unlawful for any person to discharge or to cause to be discharged into any public sewer or any opening leading to a public sewer of the city any of the following:

A. Any earth, sand, rocks, ashes, gravel, plaster, concrete, glass, metal filings, or metal or plastic objects, garbage, or solid or semisolid material in quantities or volume which will obstruct the flow of sewage in the sewer or any object which will cause clogging of a sewage pump or sewage sludge pump, or interfere with the normal operation of the sewer treatment plant;

B. Any compound which will produce noxious odor in the sewer or sewage treatment plant;

C. Any volatile liquid or substance which can produce a toxic or flammable atmosphere in the sewer;

D. Any overflow from any septic tank or cesspool, or any liquid or sludge pumped from a cesspool or septic tank, except at such place and in such manner as may be prescribed by the public works director;

E. Any stormwater or any runoff from any field, roof, yard, driveway, or street;

F. On and after the first day of March, 1980, no person, firm or corporation, without exception, connected to or using the public sewer system, shall dispose of, or suffer or permit the disposal of, water which has passed through or been used in refrigeration cooling mechanisms into the public sewers, whether or not such disposition is now being made or has been made into the public sewers prior to the adoption of the ordinance codified in this section.

On or after the date the ordinance codified in this section is in effect, no person, firm or corporation shall dispose of, or suffer or permit the disposal of water which has passed through or been used in refrigeration cooling mechanisms into the public sewers of the city, or any main or pipe connected to the public sewers, except those persons, firms or corporations connected to or using the public sewer system before the effective date of the ordinance codified in this section, and those persons, firms, or corporations, excepted by this section may continue such disposition of refrigeration cooling water into the public sewers only up to, but not after, the first day of March, 1980;

G. Any liquid or vapor having a temperature higher than one hundred fifty degrees Fahrenheit;

H. Any radioactive wastes in excess of federal, state or county regulations;

I. Any material or quantity of material which will cause significant damage to any part of the sewerage system or sulfide generation or maintenance or operation costs of any part of the sewerage system or become a nuisance or menace to public health, or which will cause the city sewage plant effluent to exceed the concentration limits set by the Regional Water Quality Control Board No. 7, in accordance with Order No. 73-13R attached to Ordinance 548, codified in this chapter and on file in the office of the city clerk, or such subsequent amendments as shall be duly adopted from time to time by the Colorado River Regional Water Quality Control Board.

J. Any hydrocarbon substances, as defined herein, except as expressly authorized pursuant to Section 13.08.145.

(Ord. 650 § 2, 1988; Ord. 548 § 4, 1979)

No person, other than employees of the city, persons contracting to do work for the city, or maintenance workers of the city shall construct or cause to be constructed, or alter or cause to be altered, any public sewer, lateral sewer, house connection or industrial connection sewer over six inches in diameter, sewage pumping plant, pollution control plant, or other sewerage facility within the city where existing or proposed wastewater flows with discharge directly or indirectly to facilities of the city without first obtaining approval of sewerage construction plans from the city public works department.

The applicant shall submit to the public works department for approval construction plans and such specifications and other details as required to describe fully the proposed sewerage facility. The plans shall have been prepared under the supervision of and shall be signed by an engineer of suitable training registered in the state. Approval of the plans by the city engineer shall be obtained before approval of the plans by the public works director.

(Ord. 548 § 5, 1979)

Any facility maintained for the servicing or repair of roadway machinery shall install and maintain a sand-and-oil interceptor. Wastewaters from toilets shall not be allowed to pass through this interceptor, but all wastewaters arising from the servicing and repair of vehicles shall pass through this interceptor before discharge to a public sewer of the city. If the vehicle-servicing facilities do not include facilities for the washing of more than one vehicle at a time, the interceptor shall have an operation fluid capacity of not less than six cubic feet and an accessible effective water surface not less than four square feet. "Accessible effective water surface" means a surface which is easily accessible for cleaning and which at the same time will retain oil floating on the surface of water passing through the trap under conditions of use. It shall be the responsibility of the owner of the vehicle-servicing facilities to keep sand and oil out of the sewer. If his interceptor is not adequate under the conditions of use, he shall construct one which is effective in accomplishing the intended purpose.

(Ord. 548 § 6, 1979)

The plumbing official shall not approve the plumbing of a vehicle servicing facility or repairing facility if it does not have a sand-and-oil interceptor meeting the requirements of this chapter.

(Ord. 548 § 7, 1979)

The sand-and-oil interceptor of a vehicle-servicing facility shall be properly maintained. It shall be cleaned as often as is necessary to assure that sand and oil do not accumulate to impair the efficiency of the interceptor. When an interceptor is cleaned, the accumulated sediment and floating material shall be removed and legally disposed of otherwise than to a sewer. An interceptor is not considered to be properly maintained if for any reason it is not in good working condition. It is not considered to be properly maintained if sand and oil accumulations total more than twenty-five percent of the operating fluid capacity. The owner of any vehicle-servicing facility, the lessee and sublessee if there be such, and any proprietor, operator or superintendent of such facility are individually and severally liable for any failure of proper maintenance of such interceptor.

(Ord. 548 § 8, 1979)

A. The restrictions in this section do not apply to exchange type water-conditioning apparatus. Water-conditioning apparatus includes zeolite anion or cation exchange softeners, demineralizers and other like devices. No water conditioning equipment in use after the effective date of the ordinance codified in this chapter may discharge its wastes to the sewer or to the ground if the equipment has a mineral capacity in excess of fifteen cubic feet. Multiple units installed to supply water to the same premises shall be considered as a single apparatus for the purpose of this section.

B. After the effective date of the ordinance codified in this chapter, it is unlawful to install or replace water-conditioning apparatus of any size which discharges its regeneration wastes to the sewer or to the ground.

(Ord. 548 § 9, 1979)

A. Any person desiring to discharge industrial wastewater into a public sewer in Blythe shall submit a letter to the public works director presenting information as to the kind and amount of industrial wastewater produced and discharged by the industrial operations producing the wastewater, plans for any pretreatment facilities planned to prevent discharge of improper materials to the sewer, and any other pertinent information necessary to control discharge to the sewerage system as requested by the public works director. Within forty-five days, the public works director shall reply to this letter. If the public works director finds that the quality of the wastewater and the existing facilities for which the person furnishes a commitment to install within a reasonable period for discharge to the sewer, conform to the requirements of this and other ordinances of the city; that any existing or committed pretreatment facilities are adequate; and that the sewer capacity is available, he shall reply approving discharge of that wastewater to the city.

B. A letter of approval shall state the nature of the industry and the nature of the amount of flow which the applicant may discharge to the sewer, any controls which the public works director finds necessary in order that the sewerage system may serve its intended purpose, those chemical constituents to be analyzed and reported upon, and, in the event that installation of pretreatment or other facilities are deemed necessary, the letter shall specify the period of time granted for the installation of pretreatment or other facilities. If the public works director finds that the proposed discharge will not be lawful under this chapter or other applicable laws, he shall so notify the applicant; such notification to be within forty-five days of the finding.

(Ord. 548 § 10, 1979)

If the discharger wishes to make alterations of pretreatment facilities or alterations of connections to the sewer, or if he wishes to discharge additional waste or to discharge wastes in excess of the amounts which have been approved, or wastes of a different kind, he shall submit to the public works director a letter requesting approval of such alteration. The public works director shall treat this in the same manner as an original application under Section 13.08.080.

(Ord. 548 § 11, 1979)

It is unlawful after one hundred eighty days from the effective date of the ordinance codified in this chapter for any person to discharge into the public sewerage system of the city, directly or indirectly, any industrial wastewater which is not approved as to kind and amount by a letter from the public works director. Any such discharge shall be in accordance with any restrictions and conditions imposed in the public works director's letter of approval, except that the public works director shall grant such reasonable extensions of time in excess of the one hundred eighty-day period as may be necessary for plant alterations, changes in process or the design, acquisition, manufacture, installation and testing of the committed treatment or other facilities, which additional time the public works director agrees is required to effect compliance.

(Ord. 548 § 12, 1979)

Except as set forth in this chapter, no industrial waste shall be discharged to a public sewer unless it conforms to the requirements set forth in this chapter for all discharges to public sewers, and no industrial wastewater shall be discharged to a public sewer unless it conforms also to the requirements set forth in this section. Compliance with the requirements of this section shall be based on the mean values obtained from analysis of industrial waste samples representative of the quality and quantity of discharge to the sewer at the point of entry of industrial waste to the public sewer system, or if this is not feasible, at other points up the stream of the individual industrial waste discharge. All such samples shall be weighted with the flow at the sampling point to furnish values weighted with time and quantity for each required chemical constituent. Wherever deemed practical by the public works director, these industrial wastewater samples may be composited with regard to time and quantity and the analysis made from such composite samples.

(Ord. 548 § 13, 1979)

The following constituent items A through H, are those for which the Colorado River Regional Water Quality Control Board specifies limitations in terms of not exceeding the water supply plus a given increment of the constituent. The increments given in this section have been increased above those specified by the board to give industrial waste dischargers the benefit of the dilution of domestic waste discharges. If such discharge dilution is insufficient, this chapter may be amended to decrease the increment values.

A. The content of dissolved solids shall at no time exceed the yearly average dissolved solids in the water supply plus three hundred milligrams per liter.

B. The content of chloride-ion shall at no time exceed the yearly average of chloride-ion in the water supply plus fifty milligrams per liter.

C. The content of sulphate shall at no time exceed the yearly average sulphate in the water supply plus forty milligrams per liter.

D. The content of fluoride shall at no time exceed the yearly average of fluoride in the water supply plus 0.5 milligrams per liter of fluoride.

The following items, E through I, are those which related to the city's operation of its own sewers and sewage treatment works.

E. The content of total oil and grease shall at no time exceed five hundred milligrams per liter.

F. The total content of floatable oil and grease including hydrocarbon oil shall at no time exceed one hundred milligrams per liter.

G. The standard five day biochemical oxygen demand shall at no time exceed six hundred fifty milligrams per liter.

H. The suspended solids content shall at no time exceed six hundred fifty milligrams per liter.

I. The pH shall at no time be less than six or greater than nine.

(Ord. 548 § 14, 1979)

The point of determining compliance with the provisions of this chapter shall be at the point of discharge to the public sewerage system or such other upstream sampling point on the private lateral as mutually agreed upon by the industry representative and the public works director. Where certain wastes are critical, the public works director may specify procedures for obtaining necessary samples, and the public works director may require that any persons discharging industrial wastewater through the sewer install a measuring device, and that samples be analyzed and measurements of flows be taken and reported to the city, and such sampling and measuring device shall be made accessible to the public works director or his authorized representative.

(Ord. 548 § 15, 1979)

The letter of approval which shall be predicated upon compliance with the provisions of Section 13.08.110 and Section 13.08.130 may be revoked by the public works director upon a minimum notice of three days when it is found that the discharge which the letter approves is in fact in violation of the provisions of this chapter.

(Ord. 548 § 16, 1979)

A. Any person desiring to discharge petroleum or other hydrocarbon substances into the public sewer, in the city, shall submit to the city clerk for the city council approval an application presenting information as to the kind, duration and quantity of hydrocarbon substances to be so discharged, with a request for approval to discharge. Within sixty days thereafter, the city council shall reply to this letter. If the city council finds the extent of hydrocarbon discharge does not exceed a total sum of twenty-five parts per million (ppm) and further determines that there is sufficient sewer capacity available, then it may approve such discharge into the wastewater of the city, provided an agreement in a form approved by resolution of the city council providing for durations, fees for discharge, and the like is first signed by such person desiring to so discharge.

B. The agreement shall provide for the quantity and duration of such discharge, together with any and all reasonable and necessary additional controls and/or approvals the city council determines necessary and appropriate to protect the city sewer system. If the city council finds that the proposed hydrocarbon discharge would be unsafe to the system or unlawful under applicable laws and regulations of either the state or the United States government, it shall so notify the applicant within forty-five days of said findings.

(Ord. 650 § 3, 1988)

Nothing in this chapter shall be construed as lessening the applicability of other requirements of this chapter.

(Ord. 548 § 17, 1979)

It is unlawful for any person to discharge or cause to be discharged into any storm drain or stormwater channel or natural watercourse, whether currently carrying water or not, or into any pipe or waterway leading to such drain, channel, or watercourse, any solid or fluid material which will impair the useful functioning of such drain, channel, or watercourse, or which will cause expense to the city, or other public agency, in maintaining the proper functioning of same, or which will cause public nuisance or public hazard or which will cause detrimental pollution of natural surface or subsurface waters.

(Ord. 548 § 18, 1979)

It is unlawful for any person to deposit or discharge or cause to be deposited or discharged into any sump which is not impermeable or into any pit or well, or on to the ground, or into any storm drain or watercourse any material which by seeping underground or by being leached or by reacting with the soil is detrimental to the usable underground waters and exceeds the range of the effects of ordinary nonindustrial land uses on underground waters into which such wastes may seep, or which will violate any requirements of Water Quality Control Board No. 7.

(Ord. 548 § 19, 1979)

Decisions, judgments or findings made by the public works director pursuant to this chapter may be appealed to the city council. The city council may amend, modify, confirm or reject any such decision, judgment or finding (including waivers); provided the purpose and intent of this chapter is not violated. No appeal shall be made with respect to the specific requirements pertaining to quality, content or type of disposal of wastewater that may be discharged, as contained in Sections 13.08.020, 13.08.040 and 13.08.110.

(Ord. 548 § 20, 1979)

Wherever in this chapter time limits are established or periods of compliance or extensions thereof are specified, the commencement date for computing such periods or time limits for areas annexed to the city subsequent to enactment of the ordinance codified in this chapter shall be the official annexation date. This section shall have no application to firms or industries established subsequent to the annexation date.

(Ord. 548 § 23, 1979)

All the provisions of this chapter are to be reasonably interpreted. It is the intent of this chapter to recognize that there are varying degrees of hazard to the underground waters and to apply the principal that the degree of protection should be commensurate with the degree of hazard.

(Ord. 548 § 24, 1979)

Any person, firm, or corporation violating any of the provisions of this chapter is guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof shall be punishable by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars, or by imprisonment for a period of not more than three months, or by both such fine and imprisonment. Each such person, firm or corporation is guilty of a separate offense for every day during any portion of which any violation of any provisions of this chapter is committed, continued or permitted by such person, firm or corporation, and shall be punishable therefor as provided by this chapter.

(Ord. 548 § 21, 1979)