Compliance monitoring.
Houston Code of Ordinances § 47-193
in effectSec. 47-193. - Compliance monitoring.
The director shall have the right to enter the premises of any user to determine whether the user is complying with all requirements of this article and any individual wastewater discharge permit or general permit or order issued hereunder. Users shall allow the director ready access to all parts of the premises for the purposes of inspection, sampling, records examination and copying, and the performance of any additional duties.
(1) Right of entry: inspection and sampling.
a. Whenever it is necessary for the purposes and objectives of this article, the director may enter upon any user's facility, property, or premises subject to this article for the purpose of:
1. Performing all inspection, surveillance, and monitoring procedures necessary to determine, independent of information supplied by users, compliance or noncompliance with applicable pretreatment standards and requirements by a user. Compliance monitoring and inspection shall be conducted at a frequency as determined by the director and may be announced or unannounced;
2. Examining and copying any records required to be kept under the provisions of this article or of any other local, state or federal regulation;
3. Inspecting any monitoring equipment or method, pretreatment system equipment and/or operation;
4. Sampling any discharge of wastewater into POTW; and/or
5. Inspecting any production, manufacturing, fabricating or storage area where pollutants, regulated under this article, could originate, be stored, or be discharged to the POTW.
b. The occupant of such property or premises shall render all proper assistance in such activities. Where a user has security measures which require proper identification and clearance before entry into its premises, the user shall make necessary arrangements with its security guards so that, upon presentation of suitable identification, the director shall be permitted to enter without delay for the purposes of performing specific responsibilities.
c. The director shall have the right to set up on the user's property, or require installation of, devices necessary to conduct sampling and/or metering of the user's operations. The director may require the user to provide multiple sampling facilities at the end of each industrial process and at a final, end-of-pipe, combined flow location to determine compliance with the user's permit and this article.
d. The city may use a camera to photograph or video record any areas of the facility as deemed necessary for carrying out the duties of the pretreatment program including, but not limited to, documentation of the user's compliance status and for reinforcement of required written reports. The user shall be allowed to review copies of photographs for confidentiality claims.
e. Any temporary or permanent obstruction to safe and easy access to the facility to be inspected and/or sampled shall be promptly removed by the user at the written or verbal request of the director and shall not be replaced. The costs of clearing such access shall be borne by the user.
f. Failure to allow entry or unreasonable delays in allowing the director access to the user's premises shall be a violation of this article. Any delay exceeding 10 minutes shall be considered unreasonable. Obstructions to the safe and easy access to any portion of the facility including sampling locations shall be a violation of this article and warrant revocation of the user's permit.
g. The director shall assess the strength and concentration of the waste discharged to the sanitary sewer system unless an alternate sampling method or criteria is required by a permit, permit application, enforcement action, or other directive of the director. Tests made on representative samples collected by the director shall be made at such intervals as the director may designate.
h. For evaluating compliance with any pretreatment standard or requirement, the director may use any sampling location from which samples will either directly or indirectly represent a user's discharge. If a sampling location includes dilution, such as domestic wastewater, infiltration, inflow, or storm water, and if samples at this location violate an applicable limit, then the director may conclude that process wastewater discharged at an upstream location was the cause of the violation. The director may use sample collection techniques or analytical methods that bias sample results low as a basis for enforcement action, such as composite samples for pollutants for which grab samples are normally used. The director may use sampling locations, sample collection techniques, or analytical methods other than those established in an industrial waste permit for compliance determination. In particular, the director may perform monitoring at the control manhole to determine compliance with local discharge limits.
(2) Search warrants. If the director has been refused access to a building, structure, or property, or any part thereof, and is able to demonstrate probable cause to believe that there may be a violation of this article, or that there is a need to inspect and/or sample as part of a routine inspection and sampling program of the city designed to verify compliance with this article or any permit or order issued hereunder, or to protect the overall public health, safety and welfare of the community, the director may seek issuance of a search warrant from a magistrate through the Environmental Crimes Division of the Harris County District Attorney's Office.
In the event the city has reason to believe a situation represents an imminent threat to public health and safety or the environment, and where entry has been denied or the area is inaccessible, an agent of the city may enter in the company of a uniformed peace officer, before a requested warrant has been produced, in order to determine if the suspected situation exists, and if so, to take such actions necessary to protect the public.
(Ord. No. 2020-1024, § 2(Exh. A), 12-2-2020)
Source: City of Houston, Code of Ordinances and City Charter (Municode Library, library.municode.com)URL: https://library.municode.com/tx/houston/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=COOR_CH47WASE_ARTVINWA_S47-193COMOFetched: 10/26/2026