Municipal Industrial Pretreatment Award
The City of Bethlehem received the 2016 Municipal Industrial Pretreatment Award from the Eastern Pennsylvania Water Pollution Control Operators Association.
The award recognizes excellence in the development and implementation of a municipal industrial pretreatment program. The MIPP program is administered by a team of three city employees, all certified waste water operators. The MIPP program is mandated by US EPA to monitor and control the discharge of significant levels of pollutants into the sanitary waste stream from large commercial and industrial customers. 35 companies in our service territory are currently included in the program. MIPP staff inspect these facilities and collect unannounced samples of their discharge on a regular basis. We maintain a close working relationship with these companies to ensure they meet their discharge limits and advise on process control technologies to reduce the level of pollutants discharged to the environment.
AWOP Award
The City of Bethlehem water treatment plant received its 13th consecutive annual AWOP Award in 2020.
The Area-Wide Optimization Program (AWOP) is a multi-state effort sponsored by the US Environmental Protection Agency, PA Department of Environmental Protection, and the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators to develop and implement programs to optimize the performance of water treatment plants. AWOP is designed to assist drinking water providers work toward reaching and maintaining a sustained high level of water quality in an effort to increase public health protection.
The award is a tribute to the hard work and dedication of the City’s water treatment plant operators and managers.
The water treatment plant produces on average 14 million gallons of potable drinking water per day and serves a population of approximately 120,000 in the City of Bethlehem and several surrounding municipalities.
The City is in EPA’s Region 3 AWOP district which is comprised of six mid-Atlantic states.