Domestic Wastewater Sampling provided by Nate Davis
Nate Davis, ECI3, City of Petaluma
Nate Davis has always been passionate about protecting the environment. He studied at Sonoma State University’s Geology Department, earning a bachelor’s degree in Earth Science and a minor in Environmental Studies and Planning. He initially aimed to pursue a career in environmental science but was uncertain about where his degree might take him.
“I have always known my career path would be in the environmental field,” Davis said. “The Pretreatment world was not something I had a lot of experience with until my time with the City of Petaluma, but it was something I was quickly drawn to.”
His journey in the environmental field began in 2019, when he took on the position of Environmental Services Technician at the Ellis Creek Water Recycling Facility.
“I worked and gained experience across all Environmental Services programs, including the laboratory, water conservation, stormwater, and pretreatment,” he explained. “I enjoyed the compliance aspect of pretreatment, as well as working directly with our local industries. I continued moving toward pretreatment and was grateful for the opportunity to move into the Environmental Compliance Inspector role in 2022.”
Today, he has over 11 years of experience in environmental science. For the past four years, he has worked with the City of Petaluma as an Environmental Compliance Inspector (ECI). He currently holds a CWEA Environmental Compliance Inspector III certification.
His daily responsibilities include preparing industrial permits, sampling wastewater at industrial sites to ensure compliance with the City’s local limits, inspecting industrial facilities, reviewing building permit plans, billing wastewater usage fees for industrial facilities, addressing public complaints related to stormwater and wastewater, and performing other tasks.
Davis handles Industrial Pretreatment and participates in Stormwater and Pollution Prevention programs. He responds to stormwater complaints, enforces stormwater rules, monitors dry-weather outfalls, and inspects City facilities for hot spots. He also conducts commercial inspections at food establishments and represents the City at public events to promote stormwater and wastewater pollution prevention.
Water Recycling Group with Plans provided by Nate Davis
“Being the longest tenured staff member in the group, Nate has gone out of his way to train new staff members. He has always made himself available to answer questions and support anyone on the team,” said Patrick Pulis, Environmental Service Supervisor for the City of Petaluma. “In the past, when there have been periods without a supervisor, due to recruitment, Nate willingly took on more responsibility in administering the Pretreatment program.”
Pulis mentioned that Davis is typically the City’s first point of contact for explaining requirements and regulations to commercial and industrial wastewater users. He is also proactive in staying informed about proposed changes and in alerting industries about upcoming updates.
“Nate has a natural way of describing complex regulations to the public in a way that is easy to understand,” Pulis said.
Davis played a key role in the City’s 2022 Local Limits study. He found that the previous nickel and copper limits were overly strict and not based on the treatment plant’s removal capacity. Working with a consultant, Davis helped propose new, higher limits aligned with the plant’s actual removal capacity. These limits were incorporated into the updated local limits, enabling industries to meet permit requirements more easily without compromising the plant’s NPDES compliance. This project allowed Davis to engage more deeply with a core aspect of the Pretreatment program.
“While we worked with the industries to identify solutions, we also evaluated the plant’s treatment capacity. We identified that the established local limits were not technically based and did not accurately reflect the plant’s treatment capacity,” Davis said. “We requested an evaluation of the plant’s capacity for treatment, which was conducted during the local limits study. The results provided us the ability to increase and impose technically based concentration limits, which we established in our local limits through Water Board approval and were reflected in our SIU permits. Having technically based effluent concentration limits for our Industrial Users validates our local limits and promotes confidence in our regulatory processes.”
Davis said he finds the ECI work very interesting and rewarding, particularly in protecting the Publicly Owned Treatment Works, the collection system, the environment, and public health and safety. He went on to say that he is grateful to the mentors and supervisors who helped him grow into this position.
“I find this career rewarding as it is environmentally conscious and directly benefits environmental and public health,” he said. “We discharge our treated effluent wastewater to the Petaluma River during the winter months, so the connection to the environment is direct.”
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