(A) Grease interceptors shall be installed by users as required by the Public Works Director or his or her designee. Grease interceptors shall be installed at the user’s expense, when such user operates a restaurant, school, child care facility with 20 or more children, deli, meat market, grocery store, bakery, entertainment club, caterer, church and fraternal organization, or when deemed necessary by the Public Works Director for the proper handling of liquid wastes containing grease or any other substance deemed harmful to the sewer system.
(B) The Public Works Director may permit, at his or her sole discretion, alternative means of grease removal other than the traditional outside grease trap. Such granting shall be by way of the issuance of a conditional use permit. A conditional use permit may be granted only when the requesting establishment has a bona fide hardship with installing a traditional interceptor. Bona fide hardships may include, but are not limited to: insufficient property requirements and logistically impractical compliance issues.
(C) All grease interceptors shall be of a type, design, and capacity approved by the Public Works Director or his or her designee and shall be readily and easily accessible for user cleaning and town inspection. The sizing of grease traps will be based on the number of seats (seating capacity procedure) or the number of meals served in a single day (meals served procedure) or other methods approved by the Public Works Director. All such grease interceptors shall be serviced and emptied of accumulated waste content as required in order to maintain minimum design capability or effective volume of the grease interceptor, but not less often than once every other month or more often, as determined by the Public Works Director. Inside interceptors shall be cleaned a minimum of once every 14 days. Users who are required, based on solids, to pass water through a grease interceptor shall:
(1) Provide for a minimum hydraulic retention time of 24 minutes at actual peak flow or 12 minutes at the calculated theoretical peak flow rate as predicted by the Uniform Plumbing Code fixture criteria, between the influent and effluent baffles with 20% of the total volume of the grease interceptor being allowed for sludge to settle to accumulate, identified hereafter as a “sludge pocket;”
(2) Remove any accumulated grease cap and sludge pocket as required, but at intervals of not longer than every other month, at the user’s expense. Grease interceptors shall be kept free of inorganic solid materials such as grit, rocks, gravel, sand, eating utensils, cigarettes, shells, towels, rags and the like, which could settle into this pocket and thereby reduce the effective volume of the grease interceptor;
(3) Abide by the following conditions: If any skimmed or pumped wastes or other materials removed from grease interceptor are treated in any fashion onsite and reintroduced back into the grease interceptor as an activity of and after said onsite treatment, the user shall be responsible for the attainment of established grease numerical limit consistent with any contained in division (A) of this section on all discharges of wastewater from said grease interceptor into the town sanitary sewer collection and treatment system;
(4) Operate the grease interceptor in a manner so as to maintain said device such that attainment to the grease limit is consistently achieved. CONSISTENT shall mean any wastewater sample taken from said grease interceptor shall be subject to terms of numerical limit attainment described in division (A) of this section. If legitimate space constraints (as determined by the Public Works Director) exist that prohibit the sewer user from installing a grease interceptor, a conditional use permit application requesting variance to this subchapter may be submitted;
(5) Understand and agree that: The use of biological additives as a grease degradation agent is conditionally permissible, upon approval by the Public Works Director. Any establishment using this method of grease abatement shall maintain the trap or interceptor in such a manner that attainment of the grease wastewater discharge limit, as measured from the trap’s outlet, is consistently achieved;
(6) Understand and agree that: The use of automatic grease removal systems is conditionally permissible, upon prior written approval by the Public Works Director, Bladen County Plumbing Inspector of the Town of White Lake and the Bladen County Department of Health. Any establishment using this equipment shall operate the system in such a manner that attainment of the grease wastewater discharge limit, as measured from the unit’s outlet, is consistently achieved; and
(7) Understand and agree that: The Public Works Director reserves the right to make determinations of grease interceptor adequacy and need, based on review of all relevant information regarding grease interceptor performance, facility site and building plan review and to require repairs to, or modification or replacement of such traps.
(D) All grease traps must be pumped once every other month and records of such supplied to the Public Works Director after each pumping. The Public Works Director has the discretion to require more or less frequent pumping on a case-by-case basis to protect the operation of the town’s sewer collection system. The town may provide a grease trap pumping program to allow for the convenient maintenance, record keeping and service payment.
(E) The Public Services Department shall maintain records for those participating in the town grease trap pumping program. All other users shall provide a written record of trap maintenance to the Public Works Director within 15 days of each mandatory pumping. Records for users that have been granted conditional use permits shall submit cleaning records bi-annually.
(F) No non-grease-laden sources are allowed to be connected to sewer lines intended for grease interceptor service.
(G) Should an obstruction of the town sewer main(s) occur that causes a sewer overflow to the extent that an impact on the environment is realized and that said overflow or failure of the sanitary sewer collection system to convey sewage can be attributed in part or in whole to an accumulation of grease in the town’s sewer main(s), the town will take appropriate enforcement actions, as stipulated in the town’s sewer use ordinance, against the generator or contributor of such grease.
(H) Access manholes shall be provided over each chamber and sanitary tee. The access manholes shall extend at least to finished grade and be designed and maintained to prevent water inflow or infiltration. The manholes shall also have readily removable covers to facilitate inspection, grease removal, and wastewater sampling activities.
(Ord. passed 1-11-2005)