State & Local Health Officials

When it comes to protecting our natural resources, state and local health officials serve as our country’s front-line preservationists. They monitor, evaluate and regulate man’s impact on the local environment and work toward keeping pollution and contamination of our water and waterways to a minimum.

Both Smith & Loveless and Bio-Microbics also have the primary goal of protecting our world’s water and waterways. That is why, we were the first to develop, gain approval and begin offering onsite Advanced Treatment Systems - FAST^® (Fixed Activated Sludge Treatment) Systems. Smith & Loveless took the FAST^® process technology used in its onboard Marine FAST^® units since the 1970s, and packaged it for land based wastewater treatment.

Today, the FAST^® Treatment Process has been developed into an extensive line of FAST^® products that successfully treat everything from simple household wastewater to complex, high-strength process wastewater. Because of its consistently proven treatment levels, Smith & Loveless Inc. and Bio-Microbics have achieved combined installations of more than 8,000 FAST^® units worldwide. Smith & Loveless started in the wastewater business in 1946, and together Smith & Loveless Inc. and Bio-Microbics Inc. plan to continue as two of the industry leaders in manufacturing quality, wastewater treatment systems.

State and Local Permit Programs

Within the United States, there are typically two permit programs that regulate FAST^® Products and other manufacturers’ treatment systems:

• NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) Permit Program
• State Department of Environmental Protection Permit Program

NPDES Permit Program -- applies to all large treatment systems with design flows equal to or greater than 10,000 GPD. It also applies to all industrial, municipal and other facilities’ discharges that go directly to surface waters. In most cases, the NPDES permit program is administered by authorized states who are approved by the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) Office of Wastewater Management.

State Environmental Protection Permit Programs -- typically apply to all treatment systems with design flows of less than 10,000 GPD that use a septic system or do not have a surface discharge. In many states, these small flow Permit Programs are administered by local Boards of Health who are authorized by the state’s environmental regulatory authority.

New Technical and Test Data

As new technical and third-party test data on FAST^® become available, we will post that information to www.fast-facts.com.