Burger King worker caught red-handed pouring gallons of grease into storm sewer. How fatbergs cost U.S. taxpayers millions

“As you drove by through here, you could smell the nasty, dirty, used oil,” Bates told NBC (1).

By the next morning, the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) police and a spill response team were already on site. The DEC confirmed between three and five gallons of used cooking oil had been dumped illegally. Officials placed an absorbent device where the sewer feeds into the creek and ticketed the employee for disposal of a substance injurious to fish and disposal of an unlawful substance into a public stream (1).

“The actions taken by the employee were not consistent with our policies or procedures,” Burger King franchise owner JSC Management said in a statement. “The matter was addressed immediately. Appropriate corrective action has been taken, including discipline and retraining, and procedures have been reinforced with the team (1).”

The company also said the location has a functioning grease holding tank. The employee simply chose not to use it (1).

A small incident with a very large price tag

What looks like a local story is actually a glimpse into one of America’s most expensive and least talked-about infrastructure problems.

When cooking grease enters the sewer system, it cools, hardens and bonds with other non-biodegradable waste, such as wipes, food scraps and hair, forming what engineers call “fatbergs,” (2) massive, concrete-hard blockages that can span hundreds of feet underground and take weeks to remove (3).

According to sources citing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, fat, oil and grease cause roughly 47% of the estimated 400,000 (4) sewer blockages that occur nationwide each year (5).

And the cost to taxpayers is staggering. U.S. municipalities collectively spend at least $1 billion annually on maintenance to remove clogs before they become full fatbergs, according to the National Association of Clean Water Agencies, cited by Pollution Prevention Resource Center (2).

New York City alone spends about $18.8 million (6) removing fatbergs each year, according to Popular Science, and those costs don’t stay with the city. They’re passed on to consumers via higher water and sewer rates (2).

But it’s not just a New York problem. It can happen anywhere.

For example, Fort Wayne, Indiana, spends half a million dollars a year clearing grease from its sewers, according to National Geographic (7). Portland, Oregon, shells out millions annually to prevent future blockages (8), and a 20-foot Baltimore fatberg caused a sewer overflow that sent about 1.2 million gallons of untreated waste into a local waterway (2).

Why restaurants are the main culprit

The Burger King incident is far from isolated. Restaurants and food service businesses are the leading source of grease entering U.S. sewer systems, and regulators know it.

According to New York City’s 2016 State of the Sewers Report, cited by NWPX Park, grease is responsible for 71% of all sewer backups citywide, of which NYC sees anywhere from 23,000 to 75,000 per year (9).

That’s precisely why many U.S. municipalities legally require commercial kitchens to install grease interceptors before cooking oil can reach the sewer (7) system.

In this case, the Burger King location had a functioning holding tank on-site. The employee bypassed it anyway, and the public is now footing part of the cleanup bill.

What it means for your wallet

Fatbergs are effectively a tax on every household connected to a municipal sewer system. When cities spend millions clearing blocked pipes, that money has to come from somewhere.