Monitoring technician Dwayne Cales lifts a manhole cover on Shallowford Village Drive on Thursday. Part of the inspection process involves checking to see if there is grease in the downstream manhole.Chattanooga-area communities are clearing away the FOG – fats, oils and grease – from their sewer systems.
Jasper, Tenn., recently beefed up its regulations on how restaurants dispose of fats, oils and grease. New restaurants and some existing restaurants will need to install grease-trapping devices, sewage collection system operator Ray Moreland said.
“The state is pushing us to do it,” Moreland said.
Fats, oils and grease can solidify and block municipal sewage systems.
Fort Oglethorpe Codes Enforcement Officer Jill Wynn remembers seeing that firsthand several years ago when sewers backed up in a neighborhood off Battlefield Parkway near a number of fast-food restaurants.