A dental products salesman recently visited a member dentist's office saying all offices in Wisconsin were required to have installed amalgam separators by Dec. 31, 2007. There is no such statewide requirement.

However, each Wisconsin municipality whose wastewater treatment plant discharge is not meeting the state's water quality standard for mercury is requiring dental offices to install amalgam separators to minimize mercury releases into their sanitary sewer collection system.

Each municipal treatment plant collects data at different rates to determine whether they meet water quality standards and, therefore, have individual deadlines for the installation of amalgam separators. Check with your local municipal sewerage treatment plant for the deadline, if any, by which you must install a separator.

The WDA and Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources have worked collaboratively to educate dentists on this issue and would be glad to answer any questions you have on this subject.

Contact Erika Brown at the WDA (888-538-8932 or ebrown@wda.org) or Randy Case at the DNR (608-267-7639 or charles.case@wisconsin.gov) about this or future regulations.