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Utah Department of
Environmental Quality
Prior to 1964, untreated sewage was discharged into Utah’s lakes and streams. Homes not connected to public sewers used privies or cesspools for waste disposal. In 1949, Utah’s first municipal mechanical treatment plant was built in Nephi City.
In 1953, Utah was one of the first states in the Nation to pass a water pollution control act that established a statutory board called Water Pollution Control Committee (now Water Quality Board) responsible for protecting water quality and public health.
The Committee adopted rules setting standards for streams and lakes as well as minimum treatment requirements for discharges.
At the time, Utah’s population was just over 680,000 and nearly all communities that had sewer collection systems discharged their wastewater without treatment to nearby streams. In addition, industries such as slaughter houses, manufacturers and other industries, discharged their wastewater with no treatment. By 1964, Utah had eliminated all community raw sewage discharges into lakes and streams and was one of the first states in the nation to have achieved secondary treatment standards.
In 1972, Congress enacted the first comprehensive federal clean water legislation in response to growing public concerns for serious and widespread water pollution. The Clean Water Act is the primary federal law that protects our nations waters including lakes, rivers, groundwater and coastal areas.
The two fundamental goals of the Clean Water Act are to eliminate the discharge of pollutants into the nation’s water and to achieve water quality levels that are suitable for recreation, aquatic wildlife, and for industrial, agricultural and municipal use.
Utah participated in a nation-wide effort to help communities with the cost of constructing wastewater treatment and collection systems utilizing the Federal Construction Grants Program beginning in 1956. Since the inception of this program Utah communities have received $225 million in grants that resulted in the construction of over $500 million worth of wastewater facilities.
The 1972 Federal Clean Water Act required permits for all industrial and municipal discharges that polluted surface and ground water. In 1978, the Bureau of Water Pollution Control (later known as Utah Division of Water Quality issued its first municipal and industrial discharge permits. Currently there are over 1100 permits issued to control pollution discharges to surface and ground waters of the State. In 1990, the State Revolving Loan Program replaced the federal grants program which provides low interest loans to communities to build wastewater treatment and collection systems. In addition to this funding, local governments have provided approximately four times this amount for local projects.
Today, point source discharges from municipal sewers and industries are treated adequately. The remaining water pollution is mainly due to non-point sources of polluted runoff from roads and city streets and activities with urban development, agricultural activities such as animal feeding operations and runoff from irrigated fields, mining and timber activities, as well as naturally occurring sources. Ground water protection rules were adopted in 1989. These regulations are intended to provide the means and procedures for protecting ground water quality in Utah. Central to this goal is the issuance of ground water discharge permits to new and existing facilities that discharge or may discharge pollutants to ground water. These rules are designed to be preventative in their composition. That is, the regulated community is encouraged to prevent contamination of ground water underlying their facilities as a result of their activities. Utah has adopted and anti-degradation policy for ground water protection. In short, this policy recognizes and limits the negative effects of anthropogenic activities while requiring a greater degree of protection to higher quality of ground water. Also supporting the goal of ground water protection are non-regulatory activities that include interagency and local government coordination, resource assessment, technical information and data management.
Utah, as the second-most arid state in the country, makes wise use of its water resources by using treated wastewater for agricultural irrigation. In 1997, Tooele became the first Utah community to provide extra treatment to allow reuse of treated wastewater in a public place by irrigating its municipal golf course. Developing water quality restoration plans for impaired streams and lakes is an emphasis for the Utah Division of Water Quality through the year 2010. This program will determine the maximum concentration of pollutants for each impaired water body and will limit that pollutant in each discharge. Pollutants include phosphorus, nitrates, ammonia, sediment, bacteria and increased water temperature.
Utah has also adopted rules for the use of gray water. Utah’s decentralized waste water system program is also progressive with promulgation and alternative technologies rule, and certification at onsite professionals.
There are many challenges to maintaining good water quality despite dramatic population growth and increased use of public land. Utah has implemented an effective program to tackle polluted runoff watershed by watershed. Watershed restoration plans will reduce the adverse effects of erosion on agricultural land and polluted runoff from urban areas. Many growing rural Utah communities have seasonal high groundwater that can cause septic systems to fail. Many residents have had to deal with standing groundwater in their yard, including raw sewage from their drain fields. Some systems had to be drained directly from the septic tank to a drainage ditch or to back yards so that the home plumbing could continue to function. The Division of Water Quality and local city/county health departments are concerned about potential health hazards from potentially disease-causing organisms. They are working closely together to build sewer interceptor and collection systems that will convey wastewater from the community to a wastewater treatment facility.
The support of citizens and industry to implement controls and best management practices will be vital as the population continues to increase. Federal and state requirements must be achieved by identifying impaired waters and developing and implementing water quality restoration plans.
Contributions by various staff members of the Division of Water Quality and Mr. Don Ostler, P.E. are gratefully acknowledged.