While similar in nature, a municipal wastewater treatment facility and an industrial wastewater treatment facility such as one located onsite in petroleum processing plants may not be able to handle mixing input streams. This would especially be the case for adding industrial wastewater to a municipal treatment outfit because they are designed for specific types of pollutants. These pollutants include food wastes, microorganisms, viruses, bacteria, certain nutrients such as Nitrogen and Phosphorous, and household organic products such as pharmaceuticals and soaps.¹ Beyond these contaminants, municipal treatment also controls levels of suspended solids and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) among other things which do exist in industrial wastewater, however the problems is there are more than just these pollutants coming from refineries. For example, BOD, Nitrogen, Phosphorous, and suspended solids are accompanied by contaminants like oils, hydrocarbons, mercaptans, phenols, toxic compounds such as cyanides and H₂S or even strong acids such as sulfuric acid and hydrofluoric acid. Municipal installations are simply not built to handle these types of pollutants and would therefore either slowly destroy the municipal plant or allow the toxins to flow directly into the clean water supply. A report by the EPA said that refineries may use one to two and a half gallons of water for every gallon of product they produce³ which would lead to an enormous amount of pollutants entering our water supply.

1. Velegol, Stephanie . “CE 370 – Module #7a: Wastewater Components.” Penn State College of Engineering . N.p., n.d. Web. 23 July 2014. http://www.engr.psu.edu/mediaportal/flvplayer.aspx?FileID=4b42d423-1a7d-4e05-accd-9
2. Eser, Semih. “Wastewater Treatment.” F SC 432: Petroleum Processing. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 July 2014. <https://cms.psu.edu/section/content/default.asp?WCI=pgDisplay&WCU=CRSCNT&ENTRY_ID=F20C6357261A4AE2A750C141B721E8C1>
3. “Water & Energy Efficiency by Sectors, Oil refineries.” EPA. Environmental Protection Agency, n.d. Web. 23 July 2014. <http://www.epa.gov/region9/waterinfrastructure/oilrefineries.html#water>.