The City of Hanford Industrial Pretreatment Program permits industries to discharge to the city’s municipal wastewater system once certain criteria has been met. Mike Popichak, pictured left, observes the partially treated food waste stream at Marquez Brothers International’s wastewater treatment facility at its Hanford plant. Mr. Popichak performed start-up of the .75 MGD facility for Carollo Engineering, and has been retained for the past three years by Marquez as a consultant for process control and to provide staff training. Industrial Wastewater Operators are certified by the California Water Environment Association. Recent changes to the California Water Code now allows Industrial Wastewater Operators to become certified 
by the State Water Resources Control Board.
Industrial waste streams can be very difficult to process. The Marquez Bothers’ plant processes 750,000 gallons of cheese and other milk product wastewater per day, as in the picture right, showing the primary treatment aeration chamber. Other types of industrial waste streams Aqua Operations provides services for includes biodiesel wastewater treatment for Crimson Renewable Energy, the largest producer of biodiesel in California. The chemical oxygen demand concentration of Biodiesel waste streams can exceed 20 – 30 thousand mg/L.
Industrial wastewater operations requires extensive process control utilizing a strict, routine monitoring of the waste stream by sampling and analysis. Left, Mr. Popichak discusses wastewater biology with the laboratory technicians and operators at Marquez Bothers’ onsite laboratory for its wastewater treatment facility.
Aqua Operations can structure a consulting or operations contract, or training program to meet your specific needs. Industrial Wastewater Treatment by Aqua Operations, Inc., will be continued …
