As part of its effort to tackle sewer spills and grease backups, DeKalb County Watershed is offering residents both funnels to use with cooking oil and reusable lids to put over cans filled with grease.
The freebies are available at the watershed office at 1580 Roadhaven near Stone Mountain or by calling 770-621-7200.
Bacon fat and pan drippings might well still clog the arteries of metro Atlanta diners, but folks in DeKalb County seem to get the message that the goo doesn’t belong in county sewer pipes.
After more than 1.5 million gallons of sewage poisoned waterways across the county last year, DeKalb amped up a community outreach campaign and maintenance effort, all to tackle the main cause of sewer spills everywhere.
Fats, oils and grease – shorthanded to FOG to describe cooking byproducts like meat fat and butter – dumped down the drain remain a problem. But through October, DeKalb saw a 38 percent drop in the number of spills from last year. The volume also plunged, to 562,000 gallons.
“I feel like I’ve been peppered with their ads around it,” said Andy Huff, a corporate communications worker who lives off Candler Road. “They’re memorable, because they say FOG and have a picture of Burrell Ellis, which I find humorous.”
No one was laughing, least of all the county’s CEO, when in 2010 the federal Environmental Protection Agency ordered DeKalb make $700 million in sewer upgrades after it reported 871 raw sewer spills over five years.
Grease was the culprit in seven out of every 10 spills, the same rate as spills everywhere. The problem was, DeKalb went years without the routine maintenance and cleaning that helps clear sewer lines in Cobb, Gwinnett and other counties.
That’s why Cobb had just 86,000 gallons of sewage spill last year – 4 percent of what overflowed in DeKalb.
“What we’re seeing now is grease that has accumulated in the system,” DeKalb Watershed Director Joe Basista said. “Once we get that cleaned out, if we can convince people not to put more down the drain, we will eventually not have a problem.”
DeKalb recently awarded two contracts to clean grease from 100 miles of its 2,400-mile sewer network. The work is part of the larger $1.35 billion overhaul to its sewer and water systems, expected to take eight years.
But there is more to do on grease. The watershed department is blasting local media with the ads for residents like Huff to see during the heavy-cooking period of the holidays.
The department’s public outreach unit has handed out more than 4,000 bright blue funnels at community events, freebies designed to be icebreakers to talk one-on-one about grease.
Perhaps most significantly, DeKalb is working with private firms that resell grease and the Atlanta Apartment Association to start a pilot grease recycling program.
The idea is to link up apartments, where many big spills tend to occur because of the density of residents, with the folks who will collect and resell cooking oil for fuel.
Neither the county nor association would reveal what complexes might be involved. But the two paired this year to deliver more than 25,000 door hangars to apartment dwellers in high spills areas, hoping to change behavior.
“We look forward to a continued partnership with DeKalb County as they roll out the pilot program,” association president Chris Burns said.
Despite blanketing the county with information, Huff said none of his neighbors are talking about the issue. That could mean they, like him, already pour cooking oil into a can that lands in the garbage and, eventually, is recycled at the county’s compressed natural gas plant at the landfill.
Or they might think a little squirt of dishwashing detergent and some hot water will wash away the problem, instead of blocking the lines.
“For the average Joe, I would be there is still an attitude that “if I just dump a little of mine, it will be OK,’” Huff said. “It’s almost like if people don’t think it has a direct impact on them, they don’t worry about it.”
The next round of messaging could remind residents that DeKalb is raising water rates 11 percent a year for three years, starting last year, to cover the repair work.
A focus group will be convened early next year, to survey residents on those issues and other ways to get the message out about grease backups.
“I have definitely seen a shift in the number of people who are educated about ‘just don’t pour grease down your drain’,” said watershed spokeswoman Alicia Pennie. “Through an aggressive campaign, I think we’ll really drive that message home.”
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