As part of the much-lauded Fats, Oil & Grease program (FOG), the city has been targeting restaurants and businesses that prepare food to make sure the grease they generate winds up in catch-devices called grease traps. For the most part, it has worked and the grease wound up in the traps.It’s what happened to the grease afterwards in some cases that’s the problem.
A company that was supposed to be emptying those traps is being investigated for allegedly dumping tens of thousands of gallons of grease from traps back into the sewer system, then billing customers $120 to $200 for each “removal.”
According to a federal search warrant application, the owner of Ecosolve, L.L.C. expected their employees to service 8 to 12 customers a day with trucks that only carry 2,000 to 3,000 gallons at a time. Since most traps hold 1,000 to 1,500 gallons of grease, there wasn’t enough time in the day to make return trips to Ecosolve’s waste treatment facility, where they were supposed to discharge it. The company also lacked the space to hold all the wastewater. So, according to the affidavit, drivers were instructed to make room in their trucks by discharging grease back into manholes or back into the sewer system. They were warned, they said, to look out for restaurant employees or government officials before they discharged the grease.
The practice has been going on since at least 2001, employees of the company told investigators with the US Environmental Protection Agency. According to the affidavit, they were told they’d lose their jobs if they didn’t service at least 40 customers a week. So they quickly learned a trick company employees called “decanting.” They’d fully empty the first customer’s grease trap, and then haul the grease to the next site, where they’d discharge it into the already full grease trap of the second customer. The extra grease caused the grease trap to overflow into the city’s sewer system, making more room in the truck for the grease from the second customer. Other times, they said, they’d dump the grease directly into manholes.
Millions of gallons of raw sewage have spilled from Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s overburdened system since 2001 in hundreds of incidents scattered throughout the county, some of which severely fouled neighborhood creeks and natural areas where children play. In almost every case, the media announcement Charlotte-Mecklenburg Utilities (CMU) put out about the spills warned Charlotte residents not to dump fats, oil or grease into wastewater pipes.
When asked if Ecosolve’s alleged dumping might have caused or contributed to these spills, CMU spokesperson Vic Simpson said he couldn’t comment because the investigation into the Ecosolve case is ongoing.
CMU compliance inspector Scott Clark discovered the problem in November at Rosedale Shopping Center in Huntersville. Clark noticed that although an Ecosolve truck had just pulled away from Yoshi’s Grill, the grease trap was still full of waste and the grass around the manholes surrounding the grease trap was stained and greasy despite the fact that the company had billed the owner for removing 1,100 gallons of waste. The incident, and later interviews with Ecosolve employees by EPA investigators, prompted the EPA to obtain a warrant to search Ecosolve’s offices and facilities on North Pointe Industrial Boulevard in Charlotte. The EPA got involved because under the Clean Water Act, dumping wastewater into the sewer system without a permit is a federal crime.
While CMU has conducted more than 2,700 initial inspections of food service establishments that are required to install and maintain a grease trap since the FOG program began in 2000, there is no written policy that dictates how often a food service establishment must have its grease trap maintained or how often CMU will inspect it.
“In these early years, the goal of the FOG program has been to identify and work with these businesses and educate them about the requirement,” said Simpson. “Most have been great to work with. Some have been inspected only once, presumably because they were compliant or came into compliance. Some have undergone follow-up inspections, but how frequently would depend on the individual business.”
While businesses with grease traps must keep their own on-site grease trap maintenance records and make them available for inspection upon request by CMU, the utility doesn’t own or maintain those records. Because of this, it is unknown how many grease traps Ecosolve might have been servicing.
EPA Special Agent Ivan Vikin says the agency is currently working on the case with the State Bureau of Investigation and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police. Vikin wouldn’t say whether any of the other companies performing grease trap cleaning services in the region are being investigated, but did say that the industry had caught the interest of investigators. “We are keeping an eye on them,” Vikin said.
Ecosolve has customers in at least nine states, including South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and Virginia. Vikin said he couldn’t comment on whether the company’s activities in other states were under investigation as well.
If Ecosolve owners or employees are found guilty of illegal grease dumping, they could face one to three years in prison and thousands of dollars in fines.
This article appears in Jun 16-22, 2004.
