76 companies earn environmental awards for complying with King County discharge regulations

2005 Archived News

Two Kent companies, Ball Metal Beverage Container Corp. and Exotic Metals Forming Co., have earned King County's 2004 EnvirOvation Award for their significant reduction in water use and reduction in amount of waste discharged to the King County sewer system.

In addition, B.S.B. Diversified Co., Smith Fabrication Inc. and Vectra Fitness Inc., all of Kent, and the Boeing Electronics Center of Renton won the county's Commitment-to-Compliance Award. The award, first presented in 1999, honors companies for discharging wastewater every month for five years with no violations.

Companies can win the Commitment-to-Compliance Award only once every five years. The three Kent companies are the first two-time winners since the award was first presented.

More than 70 other companies also received awards from the county's Wastewater Treatment Division for their excellent record of compliance in 2004 with discharge regulations.

"All these businesses and agencies have an excellent record of compliance with our discharge regulations," said Division Director Don Theiler. "They help us protect water quality by taking care in pretreating wastewater discharged into the sewer system."

King County's industrial waste regulations protect public health and the environment by preventing businesses from discharging substances that can degrade wastewater treatment, harm workers, damage facilities or reduce surface-water quality.

The Industrial Waste Program presented a Gold Award to 51 companies for discharging wastewater every month in 2004 with no violations. And 26 companies earned a Silver Award for having no King County monitoring discharge violations in 2004.

Since 1969, the Industrial Waste Program has required many industries to pretreat wastewater before discharging it into the sewer. The program does more than enforce regulations, however. It also helps businesses meet regulations by educating them about pollution prevention, waste reduction and water reuse.

For more information about the program, visit its Web site.

The county's Wastewater Treatment Division protects public health and water quality by serving 17 cities, 17 local sewer agencies and more than 1.4 million residents in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties. Formerly known as Metro, the regional public utility has been preventing water pollution for 40 years.