Water Treatment Plant General Permit

Water treatment plants produce water for drinking and for industrial businesses. The Washington State Department of Health assures drinking water is safe and reliable. Our role ensures that the water-treatment byproducts released from these plants do not harm the environment.

Treatment can involve:

Filtering and settling out sediment and disease-causing organisms.
Using chemicals to kill organisms or remove excess minerals and other contaminants.
Adjusting disinfection and chemicals to reduce scaling or corrosion within the delivery system.

We have developed the Water Treatment Plant General Permit (WTPGP) to help treatment facilities comply with state laws and the Federal Water Pollution Control Act. This permit contains specific requirements and conditions for permittees to protect rivers and other waterbodies that receive wastewater discharges.

The current permit went into effect on Sept. 1, 2019, and expires on Aug. 31, 2024.

Current permit documents

Current permit (effective Sept. 1, 2019)
- Fact sheet
- Appendix E: Response to Comments
Questionnaire
Survey (for only those permittees notified in 2020)
Public Notice of Issuance

Water treatment plant reports

Between 2014 and 2018, we reviewed data concerning water treatment plants in Washington, including:

Arsenic monitoring data provided by WTPGP permittees.
Data about raw water sources, finished water production rates, volumes of wastewater discharged, and populations served for more than 900 water treatment plants statewide.

The two reports identified below summarize that work and our findings and conclusions.

Does my facility need this permit?

You need this general permit if your water treatment plant discharges wastewater to surface waters and:

Produces 35,000 gallons per day or more (monthly total divided by the number of days in the month) of finished drinking and industrial water.
The primary function of the facility is treatment and distribution of potable or industrial water.
Produces wastewater by filtration processes.
Is not a part of a larger permitted facility.

Operations not covered by this permit include discharge of wastewater that is:

Produced by one of the following processes:
- Ion exchange
- Reverse osmosis
- Slow sand filtration
Sent to a publicly-owned treatment works delegated by Ecology.
Released to land where runoff or overflow is impossible.

If any of these are the case, you may need an individual permit.

Permit application, forms, and resources

New permit application

To submit an electronic permit application, also known as a "Notice of Intent" (NOI), through the WQWebPortal:

Sign up for a SecureAccess Washington (SAW) account. SecureAccess Washington or SAW is the state of Washington’s secure portal to access and submit applications.
Add the WQWebPortal Service to your SAW account to apply for coverage.

See instructions for applying online.

Contacts for more information

For permittees located in the following counties:

Benton, Chelan, Douglas, Kittitas, Klickitat, Okanogan, and Yakima

Marcia Porter
Permit Manager
marcia.porter@ecy.wa.gov
509-454-7864

For permittees located in the following counties:

Adams, Asotin, Columbia, Ferry, Franklin, Garfield, Grant, Lincoln, Pend Oreille, Spokane, Stevens, Walla Walla, and Whitman

Jefferson Davis
General Permit Manager
jefferson.davis@ecy.wa.gov
509-329-3565

For permittees located in the following counties:

Island, King, Kitsap, San Juan, Skagit, Snohomish, and Whatcom

Madison Diaz
Permit Manager
madison.diaz@ecy.wa.gov
206-594-0000

For permittees located in the following counties:

Clallam, Clark, Cowlitz, Grays Harbor, Jefferson, Kitsap, Lewis, Mason, Pacific, Pierce, Skamania, Thurston, and Wahkiakum

Steven Ogle
steven.ogle@ecy.wa.gov
564-999-3591

Contact information

James Hovis
General Permit Writer
james.hovis@ecy.wa.gov
564-999-3244

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