Anyway it’s described, it’s hard to make a grease boulder sound appealing, and when those balls of fat or grease get caught in the sanitary sewer system they can cause costly problems.
At the Elmhurst public works committee meeting this week, Assistant City Manager Mike Kopp suggested the city may want to start doing inspections of restaurants’ grease traps. Grease from those traps is getting into the sanitary sewer system, he said.
The city recently had to clear a particularly large grease boulder from the system. Gary Smith, manager of waste water treatment, said earlier this month the city detected an 18-by 12-inch “grease boulder” that got stuck in the sanitary sewer system on York Street, between Second and Third Avenues.
“It plugged the line so we had to bring in a truck and clean it, ” he said.
The city uses cameras to view the lines and determine where obstructions are occurring. Smith said grease in the sewers is a fairly common problem that takes money and manpower to address before it causes a sanitary overflow. He said the obstructions are not viewable from the street.
If it were left in place, however, “in the worst-case scenario it would plug it up and make a mess,” Smith said.
The city tries to dissolve or break up the grease balls before they get to the waste water treatment plant or to a pump station where they would be even more expensive to remove.
The city already has an ordinance that requires restaurant operators to take responsibility to see that grease traps are kept clean. The traps are usually located in alleys. Smith said restaurants operators usually hire contractors to empty the traps on a regular basis, but some may not be keeping up with it as much as is needed.
Before it starts a program of inspecting restaurant grease traps, Kopp said the city will try first to better educate restaurant operators about the dangers and cost of letting fats, oils or greases get into the sanitary sewers.
“It’s not good to pour grease down a drain in your home or at a restaurant,” Smith added.
