A business illegally dumped several thousand gallons of cooking grease into a city manhole, causing water contamination and intensive cleanup.
“I’m concerned that somebody thought that this was OK to do or didn’t care,” said Matt Bond, city stormwater engineer.
He said it isn’t yet known what business dumped the grease, but that it was done deliberately.
“It wasn’t just a five-gallon pail that somebody dropped in there,” Bond said.
After a days-long cleanup of the city sewer system and the creek, Bond said the advisory was lifted Wednesday.
He said the city hired plumbers to clean the city sewer lines, a hazardous materials cleanup crew to decontaminate the creek and a septic service to collect runoff from the cleaning.
Bond said the total cost for the cleanup isn’t yet known, but that “easily dozens” of hours were spent, some of which were after regular business hours.
A spill of only one gallon of oil can contaminate a million gallons of water.
Dumping is illegal under the Clean Water Act, and federal regulations for the discharge of cooking oils have the same prevention and control requirements as for petroleum oil.
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