Montague Municipal Code Art. I General Provisions

The purpose of this chapter is to provide for the maximum possible beneficial public use of the city's facilities through adequate regulation of sewer construction, sewer use, and industrial wastewater discharges, to provide for equitable distribution of the city's costs, and to provide procedures for complying with requirements placed upon the city by other regulatory agencies. (Ord. 142 § 101, 1976)

A. This chapter shall be interpreted in accordance with the definitions set forth in Section 13.12.040.

B. The provisions of this chapter shall apply to the direct or indirect discharge of all liquid-carried wastes to facilities of the city. This chapter, among other things, provides for the regulation of sewer construction in areas within the city, the quantity and quality of discharged wastes, the degree of waste pretreatment required, the setting of waste discharge fees to provide for equitable distribution of costs, the approval of plans for sewer construction, the issuance of permits for industrial wastewater discharge and of other miscellaneous permits and the establishment of penalties for violation of this chapter. (Ord. 142 § 102, 1976)

A. The city operates the Montague sewerage facility serving homes, industries and commercial establishments within the city limits of the city of Montague and within the area immediately adjacent to the city.

B. The following basic city policies apply to the regulation of waste discharges within the area served and will also apply to other discharges that are tributary to the city facilities.

C. Generally, liquid waste originating within the area served will be removed by the city's sewer system provided that the wastes will not (1) damage structures, (2) create nuisances such as odors, (3) menace public health, (4) impose unreasonable collection, treatment or disposal costs on the city, (5) interfere with wastewater treatment processes, (6) exceed quality requirements set by regulatory government agencies, or (7) detrimentally affect the local environment.

D. The highest and best use of the city's sewer system is the conveyance, treatment and disposal of domestic wastewater.

E. To comply with the stated policies of the Federal Government and to permit the city to meet increasingly higher standards of treatment plant effluent quality, provisions are made in this chapter for the regulation of industrial wastewater discharges. This chapter establishes quantity and quality limitations on industrial wastewater discharges which may adversely affect the city's sewage system or effluent quality. Methods of cost recovery from industrial wastewater dischargers are also established where the discharges impose inequitable collection, treatment or disposal costs on the city.

F. Recovery and reuse procedures established by industrial wastewater dischargers to meet the limitations set on their discharges will be preferred by the city to over those procedures designed solely to meet wastewater discharge limitations. Methods providing for beneficial reuse of otherwise wasted resources shall be the approved method of industrial wastewater treatment whenever feasible.

G. Optimum use of the facilities of the city may necessitate that the superintendent require that certain industrial wastewaters be discharged during periods of low flow in the sewer system of the city. (Ord. 142 § 103, 1976)

The definitions given in this section shall be used in the interpretation of this chapter, the issuance of permits, the making of charges for service and all other operations of this chapter unless another meaning for the word is apparent from the context.

1. “Ad valorem tax” means the tax levied for the benefit of the city on the assessed value of property within its boundaries.

2. “Assessed value” means that portion of the total assessed value of the property upon which individual city taxes are levied.

3. “BOD” or “biochemical oxygen demand” means the measure of decomposable organic material in domestic or industrial wastewaters as represented by the oxygen utilized over a period of five days at twenty degrees Celsius and as determined by the appropriate procedure in “Standard Methods.”

4. “Chlorine demand” means the difference between the amount of chlorine added to a wastewater sample and the amount remaining at the end of a thirty-minute period as determined by the procedures given in “Standard Methods.”

5. “City” means the city of Montague.

6. “COD” or “chemical oxygen demand” means the measure of chemically decomposable material in domestic or industrial wastewater as represented by the oxygen utilized as determined by the appropriate procedure described in “Standard Methods.”

7. “Discharger” means any person that discharges or causes a discharge to a public sewer.

8. “Dissolved solids” or “dissolved matter” means the solid matter in solution in the wastewater and shall be obtained by evaporation of a sample from which all suspended matter has been removed by filtration as determined by the procedures in “Standard Methods.”

9. “Domestic wastewater” means the water-carried wastes produced from noncommercial or nonindustrial activities and which result from normal human living processes.

10. “Effluent” means the liquid outflow of any facility designed to treat, convey or retain wastewater.

11. “House connection” means the sewer connecting the building sewer or building waste drainage system to the public sewer for the purposes of conveying domestic wastewater.

12. “Industrial connection sewer” means the sewer connecting the building sewer or building waste drainage system to the public sewer for the purpose of conveying industrial wastewater.

13. “Industrial wastewater” means all water-carried waste and wastewater of the community excluding domestic wastewater and uncontaminated water, and shall include all wastewater from any producing, manufacturing, processing, institutional, commercial, agricultural, or other operation where the wastewater discharged includes significant quantities of wastes of nonhuman origin.

14. “Inspector” means a person authorized by the superintendent to inspect wastewater generation, conveyance, processing and disposal facilities.

15. “Gravity separation interceptor” means any facility designed, constructed and operated for the purpose or removing and retaining dangerous, deleterious or prohibited constituents from wastewater by differential gravity separation before discharge to the public sewer.

16. “Lateral sewer,” “collecting sewer” or “main line sewer” mean a public sewer six inches or larger in diameter and used to collect wastewater from house connection and industrial connection sewers and transport it to trunk sewers. Lateral, collecting and main line sewers are built and maintained by the city.

17. “Peak flow rate” means the average rate at which wastewater is discharged to a public sewer during the highest thirty-minute flow period in the preceding twelve months.

18. “Person” means any individual, partnership, committee, association, corporation, public agency, and any other organization or group of persons, public or private.

19. “Public corporation” means this state and any political subdivision thereof, any incorporated municipality of the state or any political subdivision thereof, or any corporate municipal instrumentality of the state.

20. “Public sewer” means any sewer dedicated to public use and whose use is controlled by a public corporation.

21. “Radioactive material” means material containing chemical elements that spontaneously charge their atomic structure by emitting any particles, rays or energy forms.

22. “Sewage” means wastewater.

23. “Sewage pumping plant” means a sewage lift station.

24. “Sewerage” means any and all facilities used for conveying, pumping, treating and disposing of wastewater.

25. “Shall” is mandatory and “may” is permissive.

26. “Solid wastes” means the non-liquid-carried wastes normally considered to be suitable for disposal with refuse at sanitary landfill refuse disposal sites.

27. “Standard Methods” means the current edition of Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and Wastewater, as published by the American Public Health Association.

28. “Superintendent” means the water and sewers superintendent of the city.

29. “Suspended solids” or “suspended matter” means the insoluble solid matter suspended in wastewater that is separable by laboratory filtration in accordance with the procedure described in “Standard Methods.”

30. “Trade secrets” includes but shall not be limited to any formula, plan, pattern, process, tool, mechanism, compound, procedure, production data, or compilation of information which is not patented, which is known only to certain individuals within a commercial concern who are using it to fabricate, produce or compound an article of trade or a service having commercial value, and which gives its user an opportunity to obtain a business advantage over competitors who do not know or use it.

31. “Truck sewer” means a sewer constructed, maintained and operated by the city that conveys wastewater to the city's treatment facilities and into which lateral and collecting sewers discharge.

32. “Uncontaminated water” means any wastewater of the community not contaminated or polluted with wastewater and which is suitable or could readily be made suitable for discharge to the municipal stormwater drainage system.

33. “User” means discharger.

34. “Wastewater” means the water-carried wastes of the community derived from human or industrial sources, including domestic wastewater and industrial wastewater. Rainwater, groundwater or drainage of uncontaminated water is not wastewater. (Ord. 142 § 416, 1976)

This chapter regulating sewer construction, sewer use and industrial wastewater discharges shall supersede all previous ordinances and policies of the city governing items covered in this chapter. (Ord. 142 § 104, 1976)