Ohio EPA has issued the City of Chillicothe a notice of violation and placed the city in significant noncompliance with the pretreatment program requirements of its wastewater permit, according to the agency’s Oct. 14, 2026 notice, which was reported by J News Network from the Ohio EPA inspection documents.
The notice follows a two-day Pretreatment Compliance Inspection on Aug. 10 and 11 of the city’s Easterly wastewater treatment plant, at 405 Environmental Way, which treats about 2.5 million gallons per day under a discharge permit that took effect Dec. 1, 2025, according to the Ohio EPA documents reported by J News Network.
Ohio EPA cited three violations, according to the inspection report. The pretreatment coordinator employed during the inspection was not knowledgeable about key aspects of the approved program, a problem the report attributes to recent employee turnover. The city also failed to submit its Quarterly Industrial User Violation reports for January, April and July 2026 — no quarterly reports had been submitted since October 2025 — and annual pretreatment reports for 2025 and 2026 were also late.
The third violation centers on Herr’s Foods, the snack food manufacturer on East 7th Street, which the report identifies as a significant industrial user with no records of self-monitoring and reporting from September 2025 to June 2026, except for March 2026. Ohio EPA said the city failed to investigate and conduct enforcement action as its own Enforcement Response Plan requires, and recorded no noncompliance by Herr’s with pretreatment discharge standards itself — the cited failures were the missing reports and the city’s response to them, according to J News Network’s reporting on the inspection.
Inspectors also found sampling gaps in Kenworth Truck Company’s file and expired discharge permits — called control mechanisms — for Howmet and Adena, the city’s other significant industrial users, according to the Ohio EPA documents.
Ohio EPA directed the city to submit, within 30 days of receiving the letter, a plan describing how it will return to compliance for each violation, and warned that failure to comply may result in an administrative or civil penalty, according to the notice reported by J News Network. The notice arrives while the Easterly plant is undergoing a complete upgrade of its treatment systems.
For Chillicothe residents, the findings concern the paperwork and oversight system that governs what industries may discharge into the city sewer system — not a finding that drinking water is unsafe. The city’s compliance plan is the next step, and Ohio EPA said responding to the letter does not waive its authority to seek penalties.
Photo: Don O’Brien, CC BY