Cooking oil and grease being poured down kitchen sinks in Sanford have forced the City to do excessive cleanings to avoid sewage backups.
The drains in the homes of Sanford residents connects to one of 80 of the City’s lift stations, a pump station designed to move waste or sewage to a wastewater treatment plant by moving the wastewater from a lower to a higher elevation.
“If staff did not clean the lift station, sewage would back up on the streets and in homes,” read a post shared to Facebook by the City of Sanford in late September.
Of the 80 lift stations in the City, all are affected by oil build up to some degree.
The lift stations are cleaned once a week to manage or prevent build up from oils and grease, but some need to be cleaned more frequently than others based on the characteristics of the station.
The size of the lift station, the number and types of services connected to the station are some of the determining factors for how oils build up in a station and how frequent they need to be cleaned.
Lisa Holder, the chief communications and cultural affairs administrator for the City of Sanford, said the issues with residents pouring oils down the drain have continued forever. She added the problem is fairly consistent but may increase slightly around the holidays.
“Because several areas may discharge to the same lift station, it can be difficult to determine who is mainly responsible for causing the problem. Additionally, sometimes it is not one specific area, but several or all of them. In that situation, it can be difficult to determine how much a specific area is contributing to the problem,” said Holder.
Holder added that there are occasionally times when only one or two ares discharging to lift station that experiences excess grease build-up and needs to be cleaned weekly, where the City has put the responsibility and the cost of the weekly cleaning of the lift station on the contributing parties.
Instead of dumping oil down drains, residents should take collected oil they wish to discard in a sealed container to the City’s used cooking oil recycling centers at 300 E. Airport Blvd. and 412 W. 14th St.
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