There’s a new villain in town: The Grease Goblin.
And Shelton’s Water Pollution Control Authority hopes to fight it.
The authority is working on a city-wide program to drastically reduce the amount of grease that ends up in the city’s waste water treatment plant – and informational fliers like this may eventually be part of the plan.
It’s an effort that comes after the state Department of Environmental Protection issued new guidelines for FOG – that’s fats, oils and grease – disposal.
The DEP is pushing for statewide regulation of FOG because of the problems excess grease in public water systems can cause.
When too much grease gets into public water treatment plants, they can get blocked up and overflow. The DEP tracked such overflows between January 2002 and June 2004, and found 178 were caused by grease build-ups. That’s an average of about six each month.
The DEP said those blockages and overflows can lead to raw sewage getting into rivers and backing up into basements in homes and businesses – a “serious public safety risk.”
The grease also causes problems at local water treatment plants. In Shelton, the grease is visible from the top of collection tanks.
“It’s a nuisance, and it could potentially be a problem at the plant,” said Roy Wood, a consultant working with Shelton’s WPCA to make the waste water treatment plant more efficient.
Roy said Shelton workers do a good job cleaning the grease out of the tanks, but the goal is to prevent it from getting there in the first place.
The effort started in 1998, when the DEP created a trial program in the Torrington Area. Now, the state guidelines are trickling down to towns and cities, which must create local laws to regulate the amount of grease that ends up in the public wastewater.
That’s where the Shelton WPCA comes in.
They spoke last week about hiring a company to help draft the rules and orchestrate the public information campaign. The board has been discussing the project for the last six months.
Ultimately, the DEP and local WPCAs will require commercial businesses that prepare food to catch fats, oils and grease before it gets into the drains.
Restaurants, hotel kitchens, school and hospital cafeterias will be targeted first, but regular people can help reduce the amount of grease that makes its way into the drains too, the DEP says.
Members of the Shelton WPCA talked about possibly getting the Naugatuck Valley Health District to help make sure restaurants are doing their part through the district’s regular inspections.
