Accumulations of congealed fat aren’t uncommon in Metro Vancouver sewer pipes but officials say this is the first time clogs, known colloquially as ‘fatbergs,’ have shown up at Lulu Island to this degree
‘Fatberg’ is the funny name given to a not-funny-at-all problem that lurks in city sewer systems around the world, including recently at Metro Vancouver’s Lulu Island wastewater treatment plant.
The name is a colloquial description of how fat, oil and grease — FOG in engineering terminology — collects and congeals in sewers after being washed down drains, often around baby wipes and other garbage flushed down toilets, to form solid masses that block pipes.
Advertisement 2
Article content
Metro characterizes cleaning up ‘fatbergs’ as a $3 million problem annually, which has also, starting in June, shown up at the Lulu Island plant in potentially damaging proportions, although they don’t yet have an estimate for the cost of dealing with the issue at the plant.
“We just started seeing this from the beginning of June where we started seeing more grease arriving at Lulu,” said Dana Zheng, manager of liquid waste source control for Metro. “(It is) all types — fresh, soft grease as well as solid fatbergs.
“It’s the first time we’ve seen the issue at this scale before.”
Zheng said the Lulu Island plant’s staff are managing the problem well, so far, but the additional FOG requires a lot more cleanup and the stress it puts on equipment requires a lot more maintenance.
“And we’re seeing waste captured on influent screens, which requires disposal,” Zheng said.
Metro is still investigating reasons why the problem is happening now, but Zheng said Richmond, with its pockets of high-density housing and commercial zones with lots of restaurants, has been one of the region’s “hot spots” for the problem.
Sunrise
Article content
Advertisement 3
Article content
Zheng added that the city’s flat geography doesn’t help. Effluent flows more slowly through the system’s pipes on the way to Lulu Island making it easier for FOG to accumulate into a problem.
She added that when grease starts to line the sides of sewer pipes it also reacts chemically with soaps in effluent, which hardens ‘fatbergs’ into a more “concrete like” substance.
Restaurants do collect fryer oil for disposal and are required by regional bylaw to install grease interceptors, commonly referred to as grease traps, but Zheng said they aren’t fail-safe.
“I would say that mostly it’s a maintenance issue,” Zheng said. “When a restaurant isn’t getting their grease interceptor cleaned out at the right frequency, then grease can basically get pushed past the interceptor.”
The phenomenon has been a persistent enough issue that it has been the subject of an eight-year Metro education program aimed at getting Metro residents to not pour any source of fat down drains and to not flush anything other than toilet paper down toilets, besides bodily waste.
Zheng said fluids people wouldn’t think of such as oil-based dressings, sauces or even milk and dairy products contribute to the problem.
Advertisement 4
Article content
Metro and its member municipalities have never been alone in dealing with the problem.
During COVID-19, news reports from the South Okanagan zeroed in on particular problems with a large number of disinfectant wipes being flushed down toilets.
The trouble is they simply act like screens that attract those oils and grease eventually accumulates in pipe-clogging fatbergs.
Unlike sanitary wipes, the disinfectant in cleaning products can also kill off micro-organisms that are necessary for breaking down organic materials in sewage, as noted by Kelowna water quality supervisor Ed Hoppe in a 2020 CBC News report.
Metro’s issues are also just the tip of the ‘fatberg’ problem experienced in other cities, particularly the infamously monstrous 2017 case in London, England, when a 240-metre-long ‘berg’ clogged a section of its Victorian-era sewers requiring nine weeks to clear.
Not that Metro’s problems have been any less disgusting. Zheng said ‘fatberg’ blockages have caused sewers to back up into people’s homes, businesses and even into the environment.
In 2020, a ‘fatberg’ blockage burped effluent, including feces and toilet paper, adjacent to a Coquitlam park and salmon stream, according to news reports.
Advertisement 5
Article content
Zheng said Metro’s education program has coincided with some reduction in wipes going down the drain, “but this type of public outreach and education is something we just have to keep at consistently.”
Recommended from Editorial
Bookmark our website and support our journalism: Don’t miss the news you need to know — add VancouverSun.com and TheProvince.com to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters here.
You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber: For just $14 a month, you can get unlimited access to The Vancouver Sun, The Province, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. Support us by subscribing today: The Vancouver Sun | The Province.
Article content
 "BCCI want Test specialists to play domestic cricket; Rohit, Virat, Bumrah to be exceptions")
