State of Oregon Dept. of Environmental Quality

Presented By:

Daniel Murphy

Natural Resource Specialist

Murphy.daniel.e@deq.state.or.us

503-229-5547

Pacific Northwest Pretreatment Conference 10th Annual PNPC I am Dan Murphy with DEQ and I

have been asked to speak to you today about some of the complaints I receive in my office concerning the Innovative Ways in which people have been found to dispose of Greases and oils.

Receiving False Complaints

I receive many types of complaints in my office throughout a given year. Many have direct impacts to our local storm drain and sanitary

sewer systems.

While many complaints received in my office do not concern oil or grease, some of the things that are called oil and grease by the complainants will surprise you.

Like this complaint of some type of white grease in the storm drains.

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Complaints That Could Be Grease Or Oil. Another complaint concerned

grease that had been dumped at a construction site and was entering the open sanitary system.

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The bubbling of the agitated soils along with a high phosphorus content in the soil in the area has allowed this type of bubbling to occur.

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These examples are some of the types of complaints that I receive in my office. You don’t know what you’ll find when you get to a given site.

Receiving valid complaints When I do finally receive a valid

grease and oil complaint, it can be concerning something as small as a specific restaurant conducting poor grease and oil reclamation activities

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To something as large as a grease and oil reclamation company not handling their operations appropriately.

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What DEQ does to address these issues

We send out our elite units to address the issue.

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All the examples of false and actual grease/oil complaints I have shown you today have been addressed through either technical assistance or through our Compliance and Enforcement Office.

Thank you for listening

If you have a valid complaint or are even concerned about a situation you might observe: Please come in and take a number.

Or call me at my office: 503-229-5547

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