Met Council - Mississippi Basin Total Phosphorus - Wastewater Permit

We invite you to comment on the draft wastewater permit for Metropolitan Council Environmental Services (Met Council).

Met Council applied for a reissued water quality permit. This permit establishes combined total phosphorus (TP) limits for five Met Council owned and operated Water Resource Recovery Facilities (WRRF) that discharge to, or are upstream of, Mississippi River Pools 2, 3, 4 and Lake Pepin (Met Council - Eagles Point WRRF, Met Council - Empire WRRF, Met Council - Metropolitan WRRF, Met Council - Seneca WRRF, and Met Council - Hastings WRRF).

This permit authorizes Met Council to aggregate the TP water quality-based effluent limits from each of the WRRFs listed into single limits.

This permit does not authorize a discharge of any pollutant other than TP.

Water quality permits - or National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits - establish specific limits and requirements to protect Minnesota's surface and groundwater quality. Permits are regularly reviewed and updated as they expire, allowing the MPCA to incorporate new information about the impacts of pollutants on the environment in future permits. Permits are enforced through a combination of self-reporting and compliance monitoring.