Grease, sewage spills, fish kills cost Cobb $85K

Cobb County’s sewer system problems over the last 18 months are costing it $85,000 in state fines.?

The Environmental Protection Division cited Cobb for at least two major spills of over 10,000 gallons of sewage that led to fish kills. EPD officials also ordered Cobb to set aside funds to buy land for a stream buffer in the Noonday Creek basin, and to fix sewer line blocks caused by grease.?

“We find that 80 to 85 percent of our collection system problems are related to grease,” says Bob Brice, Cobb County’s water system director. Brice is toughening requirements for restaurant grease disposal, he says.?

“We have more than 2,500 miles of sewer collection [pipes] in the ground. I don’t know if we’ll ever eliminate all the problems,” Brice says. “But we have some intense efforts with our monitoring and we walk every stream every year to reduce the number of spills.”






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