This Grease Spill Was No Accident

We got a call to clean a grease spill at a shopping center.

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The property manager for this shopping center got a letter from the city about a grease spill around a storm drain. When one of our managers got there to see what we would need to clean it up, it was clear this grease spill was no accident.

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It was obvious that someone from one of the restaurants had been dumping grease down the storm drain for a long time. We had a crew clean up the grease outside the drain. And some of it had been there so long it hardened and had to be chipped off.

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We had one of our crew climb down in the drain and shovel the grease into a bucket so we could lift it out. We took 125 gallons of grease out of that storm drain!

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The city inspector was very happy with the work we did – but they wanted the storm drain outlet at the other end cleaned, too. The storm drain ran underneath the street and dumped out into a stream.

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The outlet was on the other side of the street about 200 feet away so we hadn’t even thought about the grease spill getting that far. But you could see where the grease had traveled hundreds of feet through the pipe and was spilling out onto the rocks.

We scheduled our crew to go back out, even though we weren’t sure how we were going to get all the grease spill off those rocks. But we had a heavy rain the night before and when we got there, all the grease had been washed away. Mother Nature took care of this part of the grease spill for us.

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This shows why the citation was issued in the first place. Anything going into a storm drain goes downstream and eventually gets into the river. You can imagine how this much grease could kill fish and vegetation or just make a sticky mess wherever it lands.

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Whether its a grease spill like this one – or just dirty sidewalks – whatever is being washed from the surface you’re cleaning needs to be recovered and disposed of properly so it doesn’t get into the river.

This is why water recovery for pressure washing is so important. We include it in our services at no additional charge.

When you need pressure washing done, make sure you call a company that does it right – including water recovery.