Starting Jan. 1, the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission is beginning a program that officials hope will prevent the types of major sewage system overflows that littered Montgomery County on Christmas morning.
In that incident, cooking grease dumped down drains and into the sewage system reportedly caused 151 gallons of wastewater to spill into a storm drain that empties into Rock Creek.
Dawn Forsythe, WSSC’s community outreach director, said the overflow was stopped within two hours. But the problem of sewer clogs runs much deeper and is a preventable phenomenon the company increasingly struggles to control.
“Sewer backups are a major problem across the country — up to 75,00 major instances are reported to the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] every year,” she said Tuesday. “Through November of this year, WSSC had about 75 sewer overflows of over 10,000 gallons caused by grease being poured down a drain.”
To clean up these spills costs in the millions. WSSC’s annual budget for education, enforcement and inspection is close to $750,000, while preventive maintenance of all overflows in the public space comes to $2.8 million annually.
According to Forsythe, this cost includes investigating the causes of overflows and conducting long-term maintenance. The company also has 19 fully equipped vehicles on hand to unclog sewer lines.
The new outreach program will increase the number of speakers who visit homeowners associations, classes in schools and community groups to talk about the need to “can the grease.”
These groups as well as restaurants also will be given lids with which they can collect the grease and fats in their establishments rather than dropping it down their drains.
“We’re putting out 10,000 lid tops and hoping that lasts us through the spring,” Forsythe said. “We’re aiming to produce as much as necessary, because stopping the grease is an essential part of our environmental commitment.”
WSSC’s sewer pipe runs for 5,200 miles through Prince George’s and Montgomery counties.
