Grease — accumulated pan drippings from Southern cooking and fried treats — is the leading cause of sewer spills in the 15-county metro region. In fact, it causes more sewer spills than pipe malfunctions, system failures and rain storms combined.
Once cooking oil, butter and other greases cool in the sewer line and solidify, they lead to dangerous spills — and expensive cleanup.
All of which explains why systems across metro Atlanta, which collectively touch more than 3.3 million residents, are spending tens of millions of dollars in routine maintenance to avoid spills and expensive repairs that lead to higher bills and taxes.
But not DeKalb.
Even though the county is forking over $1.35 billion to overhaul its water and sewer systems, none of the planned work focuses on the main reason the county saw human waste spill into waterways at a rate of once every two days last year.
Maintenance, usually routine cleaning of sewer lines, is critical when addressing grease and other threats, but DeKalb’s regular maintenance program fell off about 15 years ago, in an apparent bid to keep water rates low.
Work has been less focused on prevention and more directed at solving problems as they arise, even though grease was the culprit behind 73 percent of the county’s spills last year, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has learned.
“They have this plan to supposedly address existing lines and existing problems. Instead, they are using it to add sewer lines where they don’t exist and boost capacity,” said Tom Black, the county’s public works director for more than seven years before leaving in 1990.
“It would be better to focus on maintenance alone.”
A lesson in grease
The cost of neglect caught up with DeKalb in 2010, when the federal Environmental Protection Agency mandated $700 million in sewer upgrades after the county reported 871 raw sewer spills in five years.
The EPA also fined the county $453,000 and required it to pay another $600,000 to clean up the South River, Snapfinger Creek and the South Fork on Peachtree Creek near Emory University.
Successful systems, such as the one in Cobb County, pay to keep the gunk out of the system and fund ways to remove it.
Is that money well-spent?
Consider this: Last year, about 86,000 gallons of waste spilled in Cobb — just 4 percent of the 2 million gallons of raw sewage that fouled DeKalb’s local streams and rivers.
Cobb sets aside 25 percent of its budget for maintenance, about $48.5 million. It pays to send closed-circuit TV cameras down hundreds of miles of lines every year, checking the lines for blockages and for structural problems, such as cracks and leaks.
Gwinnett County spends 60 percent of its sewer budget on pure preventative maintenance, assessing 20 percent of its lines every year, said Jeff Boss, the department’s field operations director.
It also spends nearly $300,000 a year on education, paying for seven people to handle commercial grease traps but also go to schools and seminars to remind residents of the importance of keeping gunk out of the lines.
But the only other way to ensure that grease won’t create sewer spills is to keep it out of the system.
To that end, Cobb also funds outreach teams that get the word out at special events and even local schools, explaining that even an inch of oil in a pan can create massive grease balls in sewer lines.
Gwinnett spends nearly $300,000 a year on grease education.
“We have kids come up and talk to our representatives and tell us they told their mommy and daddy not to pour grease down the drain,” said Cobb Water System operations manager Ken Jacob. “It does require certain amount of investment on your part.”
In 2012, though, DeKalb’s watershed set aside $39 million of its regular budget for maintenance work. But almost none is devoted to education.
“Honestly, most people do not know,” said Jacqueline Echols, president of the South River Watershed Alliance. “People watch TV and they think if the commercial of Dawn cleaning ducks from an oil spill works, it will work on their drain.
“It doesn’t.”
Echols is among a chorus of critics calling for an education campaign on grease, using some of the capital project money.
Many of those arguing the loudest, such as Echols, live in south DeKalb. That’s where the South River and its tributaries snake through backyards but are often off-limits for swimming or wading because of sewer spills.
Not an easy process
DeKalb County Commissioner Stan Watson wants to know whether the county can start a grease collection operation for residents similar to the one that serves restaurants.
The problem, though, might be creating enough volume to make it worthwhile for recyclers.
The costly part of getting household grease is getting enough to fill his 450-gallon and even his 120-gallon bins, said James Lee, president of Waste Processing, a Doraville-based company that recycles grease.
But if he can, he can purify the used grease at his Acworth plant to be used for bio-fuel or pet-food additives.
But Lee also supports an education campaign. He spent $12,000 of his own money in a failed attempt to get several Dunwoody neighborhoods to dump their cooking oils and grease in collection bins he set up.
“I was surprised how few wanted to participate, even when we explained how much it was costing the county, but it didn’t move them,” Lee said. “Unless they can come up with some sort of incentive, to get people thinking about their fryer grease in a different manner, nothing is going to change.”
DeKalb Watershed Management Director Joe Basista acknowledges that the county will have to tackle some sort of education effort — eventually.
But, he said he is convinced the best way for DeKalb sewers to go low-fat is through an exercise of cleaning, repairing and building.
“Lots of people believe we should do some massive effort to keep FOG [fats, oil and grease] out of our system,” said Basista, who was hired last year after working on a similar EPA order in Atlanta. “What that is, no one knows. I know the only way I’m going to reduce spills in the next few years is a significant cleaning program.”
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