Moyock restaurants or residents that cause sanitary sewer blockage or overflows because of fat, oil and grease, or FOG, deposits will now pay a hefty fine of up to $5,000, thanks to a new ordinance passed by the Currituck County Board of Commissioners at their meeting last Monday.
Public Utilities Director Patrick Irwin told The Daily Advance that FOG is the number one cause of sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs) in North Carolina. “Grease will clog a sewer line up and make it rock hard,” he said. “We spend $20,000 cleaning out the collection system every year (in Currituck County) — but it’s a lot better than having overflow.” SSOs carry the potential for health risks, which come from contact with disease-causing organisms. Raw sewage can carry bacteria, viruses and parasitic organisms, which cause a number of diseases, ranging from mild gastroenteritis (diarrhea) to life threatening ailments such as cholera, dysentery and hepatitis. Irwin suggests that residents mix fats, oils, how and grease with absorbent waste such as paper towels, coffee grounds, kitty litter, or shredded newspaper, and discard them in the trash instead of dumping them down the drain. FOG plan requirements include routine inspection and cleaning of the district’s collection systems, grease interceptors in all new commercial construction and maintenance and record keeping for all existing grease traps and grease interceptors.
Irwin told the board that with the new plan, any residence or food handling facility that is determined to be the source, in whole or in part, of a sanitary sewer blockage and/or overflow, the residence or facility will be assessed a fine of not less than $100 and not more than $5,000, plus remediation costs for clean up, in addition to any fines dispensed from the State of North Carolina. Minor and moderate violations include inspection hindrance, failure to maintain records, failure to maintain grease interceptors and traps and failure to clean out grease interceptors and traps every 30 days. The first violation will result in a warning, Irwin said, with incremental fines from $50 to $150 imposed for each succeeding violation. Major violations include being the source of a sewer blockage, which carries a minimum $500 fine and maximum $5,000 fine, and being the source of a sanitary sewer overflow or falsification of records, each with a minimum $1,000 fine and maximum $5,000 fine. Irwin said the county sends out brochures to let residents know the consequences of FOG, and he said that most restaurants are already aware of the problem. “Our restaurants in Moyock Commons do a good job — they’re cognizant of what’s going on,” he said. “We let them know if it clogs up it would come back in their restaurant.”
Louise Harrell, co-owner of Southland Restaurant in Moyock, said her restaurant has had grease traps and interceptors in place for years. “From a business owner’s viewpoint I don’t think (fines) would affect me because we already clean our water for grease and we pay a person to maintain (the system) so we already separate the grease,” she said. “It’s something we must do to keep our permit — we have to submit reports to the county.” Harrell said her restaurant pays thousands of dollars to the county per year to keep the system operational and expects that other restaurants should be compliant, as well. “We would want other businesses to comply as we do and will,” she said. “We want the same standards applied to them that are applied to us.”
Though Camden and Pasquotank counties don’t have a FOG program, there has been one in Elizabeth City since 2005, according to Public Utilities Director Paul Fredette. “(The FOG program) does make a difference, but we could be more diligent about enforcement,” he said. “Grease is major factor — it builds up in sewage collection systems and any attempt we can make to clean the system will reduce the number of times there are backups.” Fredette said the sewers gets backed up on a regular basis in Elizabeth City and it’s not always easy to know who is at fault because of the size of the collection system. “A few times a year, we have a system that gets blocked up from a FOG deposit,” he said. “It can be anywhere in the system — generally it’s hard to pinpoint who is responsible. Family dwellings are also a problem to a smaller extent. It’s nearly a full-time job for a crew to maintain a collection system.”
By Toby Tate Staff Writer Daily AdvanceSaturday,
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