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Attachment A <br />FACILITY DESCRIPTION <br />Metal plating and metal finishing, includin <br />ted circuit <br />fabrication and protective coating applications,nare important <br />to industry in the Twin Cities area. Products from these metal <br />coating firms are used by many of the area's manufacturing <br />businesses. Provision of these essential product treatments <br />contributes to the Twin Cities' prominence in electronics and <br />computer related manufacturing and associated high tech <br />industries. There are 94 companies engaged in some form of <br />metal finishing business in the Twin Cities. <br />Waste metals occur as process residuals from metal finishing. <br />Federal water pollution control laws now limit the discharge <br />of these toxic metals as sewered chemical wastes. <br />Electroplating, printed circuit shops and metal finishing firms <br />forced to comply with pretreatment standards established under <br />the Clean Water Act, are now faced with a choice between two <br />basic pretreatment methods for removing their toxic metal <br />discharges from their wastewater. It is noted that in-house <br />water reduction measures, waste reduction and improved <br />"housekeeping" measures are inherent to both of these basic <br />methods: <br />In-house pretreatment using conventional systems which <br />chemically reduces chromium, oxidizes cyanide, and <br />precipitates heavy metals as hydroxide sludges for disposal <br />as a hazardous waste, and <br />Centralized treatment and recovery which allows for optimal <br />recovery of metals (primarily through the use of ion <br />exchange technologies) through improved economies of scale. <br />A centralized facility provides more feasible access to <br />secondary material markets, it allows generators to avoid <br />costly hazardous waste land disposal costs, and it provides <br />for a greater resource pool to fund necessary research <br />activities and capital investments. <br />Twenty-eight metropolitan area companies have joined together <br />to develop a centralized treatment and recovery facility (the <br />Facility) for managing their residual waste water discharges. <br />The Metropolitan Recovery Corporation (MRC) is the business <br />entity established to develop the Facility. <br />A-1 <br />