text: The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defined secondary treatment based on the performance observed at late 20th-century bioreactors treating typical United States municipal sewage. Secondary treated sewage is expected to produce effluent with a monthly average of less than 30 mg/L BOD and less than 30 mg/L suspended solids. Weekly averages may be up to 50 percent higher. A sewage treatment plant providing both primary and secondary treatment is expected to remove at least 85 percent of the BOD and suspended solids from domestic sewage. The EPA regulations describe stabilization ponds as providing treatment equivalent to secondary treatment removing 65 percent of the BOD and suspended solids from incoming sewage and discharging approximately 50 percent higher effluent concentrations than modern bioreactors. The regulations also recognize the difficulty of meeting the specified removal percentages from combined sewers, dilute industrial wastewater, or Infiltration/Inflow.