Valdosta enforces new grease ordinance; how about enforcing its trash ordinances?

I look forward to Valdosta enforcing its trash ordinances like it’s doing with these Fats, Oil, and Grease (FOG) ordinances. No new ordinance is needed, City Marshals just need to enforce the ones already in place.

[Valdosta example: Fats, Oils, and Grease in a manhole]
Valdosta example: Fats, Oils, and Grease in a manhole

Here’s an idea: Roger Budd Co. could set an example by buying trash cans for its parking lots, and keep them cleaned out, like city ordinances require. That would be much smaller capex than these FOG traps. And for both RBC could advertise on its billboards how green its businesses are.

Although any business will be more likely to do that once the City of Valdosta gets around to putting such trash cans on its own city parking lots, starting with across from City Hall.

Meanwhile, I applaud the City of Valdosta pro-actively preventing sewage spills with this new FOG ordinance.

Mackenzie Petrie, WALB, August 19, 2022, Valdosta business owners unhappy with new restaurant ordinance,

…The city is requiring restaurants, new and old, to install new grease traps that could cost thousands of dollars. Something business owners are not happy about.

Roger Budd Company Superintendent Freddy Temples said this cost them two months of business and over $20,000 for the new traps. And they still had to pay over $10,000 in rent while being closed.

“That’ll be $14,000, plus labor,” Temples said. “And labor will probably be anywhere from 5,000-8,000 in labor.”

If you don’t have adequate grease removal it can get into sewer lines and can cause problems in wastewater plants.

“We have a tank that’s working. Been working for 20 years, 30 years and we never had a complaint on it,” said Temples. “It’s in fine working order now, and this is holding the tenant up from opening up and it’s costing us 20-25,000.”

…

“The fog ordinance has always been in place, or has been in place since 2009 and there’s been some variance to it in the past depending on the situation,” said Scott Fowler, environmental manager for the city. “But now everybody, every establishment…has been brought up to code.”

City officials said Valdosta is not the only city taking this seriously. If sewers overflow, it can cause major health concerns and expensive cleanups.

Here are a couple of examples:

Nobody wants sewage spills. So a bit of capex for installing grease traps seems like a cost of doing business.

Just like a bit of capex for installing trash cans in parking lots and cleaning them out should be.

 -jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!
https://wwals.net/donations/