Elimination

The transported waste water is brought to our facility and pumped into holding tanks. After a settling period, it is pumped through a series of filters, an oil absorbent material to trap hydrocarbons, and pH correction equipment if necessary. The effluent is finally pumped into the sanitary drain for elimination.

The most critical issue is the permit and meeting all the required parameters that makes it legal to discharge to sanitary. Each municipality has a different sewer plant and each plant writes its own rules and regulations. Different tests are routine and are easily met with the correct filters and oil absorbing media in the right place. The difficult tests are those that have recently emerged, as sewer authorities also become more sophisticated. The new tests include: Dissolved Sulfides, Cyanide, Chloroform, Sodium, and Benzene. Last but not least, many authorities are adding metals to their list of unlawful discharges. These metals include: Arsenic, Boron, Cadmium, Chromium, Copper, Lead, Mercury, Silver and Zinc to name a few.

Metals like Lead and Zinc are often found in incoming drinking water at levels higher than allowed at some sewer discharge levels. Metals such as Cadmium and Zinc are often found in vehicle cleaning compounds in levels over the acceptable discharge levels. The process that is used to remove these metals from the waste water is called flocculation. Chemicals are added to the system and agitated. After a period of time, solids drop out of the solution and the "clean" effluent is discharged in batches. The sludge that is generated here is classified as non-hazardous and is drummed for legal disposal. This process is time consuming, costly and labor intensive. This process does work and is presently in use at all of our facilities.

Sewer authorities are becoming more and more strict in order to meet guidelines placed on them by the Federal Government. Many sewer authorities sell the sludges they generate as landfills and fertilizers, and must meet stringent Federal Regulations. Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission in New Jersey and the City of Orlando Sewer Authority in Florida are just two of many authorities that are selling their effluent.

Sanitary sewer connections can become an expensive method of elimination. Sewer Authorities will monitor a sanitary connection monthly. This involves monthly lab analyses that can be very expensive. The Authorities can mandate the use of equipment and monitoring devices to placed in your facility at your expense. 24 hour pH monitors and recorders are required in several of our facilities. In addition, a 24-hour composite sampler has also been installed in several facilities to draw a sample for a lab analysis. This equipment is expensive and requires constant maintenance. All this equipment and all these lab tests add considerably to operational costs.
Customers have asked us to use existing drains (such as floor drains) on their property for the elimination of their waste, but the only drains our operators are directed to use are either Fleetwash Facility drains or a customer that has a valid sanitary discharge permit of its own with their own treatment plant. Such a permits are rare, however, and our Company policy is to avoid the use of drains that we do not own, since it is nearly impossible to tell what that floor drain leads to.

Floor drains that are connected to oily-water separators are often mistaken for acceptable dump sites, but they are not acceptable. Oily-water separators were designed to do just what their name says, separate oil from water; however, truck cleaning involves soap or detergent besides oil and water. This dumping is in fact illegal and violators can be cited with felony charges.

The entire Fleetwash system of water recovery has been reviewed and approved by the D.E.P. in New Jersey, the D.E.C. in New York, the D.E.R. in Pennsylvania, and the D.O.E. in Maryland. The process is also used in Delaware, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi, Kentucky, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Arizona, Texas, Alabama, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Nevada California, Oregon, Connecticut, Oklahoma and Colorado.