Grease Traps Reduce Waste at Resort Hotel

Peak season for the resort runs between May and September. They can expect over 20,000 visitors throughout the year. During the peak season, over 1,000 meals are prepared each day. These meals for hungry lodgers became a sore point for Bill over the years.

“When the lodge was constructed in 1965, kitchen effluent was handled by a 2,000 gallon outdoor grease trap. In the early 1980’s, extensive renovations to the site prompted us to install two 30 GPM (gallons per minute) passive traps under our kitchens. Whereas grease had always been something of a nagging problem before, we really began experiencing problems with the passive interceptors,” says Welsh.

Each passive trap underwent the laborious process of manual maintenance on a weekly basis. Every Monday, the low man on the totem pole would have to go in and shop-vac the units out all the way to the bottom. As the capacity of the shop-vac was considerably less than the 120 gallons of liquid contained in the traps, this person had to lug the vacuum upstairs and empty it into the collection container five times each cycle. The entire process took almost 5 hours to complete.

If this were not enough, the permeating odors generated by the passive traps created a situation in itself. The air handlers for the resort are located next to the mechanical room, where the passive traps were once located. “When we opened those traps to clean them out, the smell would radiate next door to the handlers. In no time, the entire lodge reeked of rancid grease & solids.” Anybody who has ever smelled a rancid trap knows this is not a pleasant experience, especially when trying to enjoy a meal.

The facility also had experienced serious problems with clogged pipes in the form of backups. The resort is the lowest user on the collection system with a residential community located above, so when grease blockages occurred downstream, the basement of the resort became the outlet. The worst of these floods occurred when the 8-inch sanitary sewer line became restricted all the way down to almost 1/2”. “We had raw sewage in the basement almost up to our knees. The flood destroyed food & paper stocks in addition to making an unholy mess. The manholes next to the driving range on the golf course literally blew off.”

Although the Resort is in a beautiful location aesthetically, there is one minor setback. Down the hill and across Highway 101 lay the local wastewater treatment plant. “After we installed the passive traps, the plant began getting grease balls on a regular basis in their works, and every time we jetted out our lines, they would get the grease plugs,” states Welsh. “They knew exactly where it was coming from.” Consequently, the sewer authority began to prod the resort to do something.

Finally, the situation came to a head. “When the resort was sold to the present owners around 1996, one of the stipulations was that we do something about our grease traps. All I could think was ‘Oh my God, what am I going to do?’ We simply did not have enough room outside to install a large trap, and we wanted to get away from small passive traps.” To find some suggestions, Bill turned to a local plumber with whom he regularly works.

“He knew of a firm that sold Big Dipper® automatic grease removal systems, and thought that this would provide a solution to the problems we were having. We did some research, and decided to remove the two 30 GPM passive traps and install twin W-750-AST removal systems. Each unit handles a 75 GPM flow, so we re-plumbed everything in the kitchen to these interceptors.”

Big Dipper automatic interceptors use a patented skimming wheel assembly to remove grease and oils. Wastewater flows from the kitchen enter the unit and a solids strainer chamber filters out any food scraps or other debris from the effluent. A macerating pump automatically removes this debris from the solids chamber. The greasy effluent continues into a heated baffled chamber where separation takes place. Periodically, a timer initiates the grease removal process. The skimming wheels activate and skim grease and oils out of the unit and into a collection container beside the unit. The grease and oils are ready for landfills or rendering companies.

“We installed the Big Dippers in the middle of 1996, and it has been great. We have cut down on maintenance time considerably. It’s a piece of cake. We used dual systems so we could redirect the kitchen flow from one unit to the other while performing routine maintenance. No longer do we have to find the low man to go down there to take care of the systems.

“On a heavy day, the systems remove about five gallons of grease. Removing this grease before it gets into our sewer lines has eliminated the risk of having any backups. The sewer authority is happy as a lark, as well. They no longer get grease plugs from the jetting out of our lines.”

Eliminating this concern has allowed Bill to carry on with what he does best, which is taking care of the Westin Salishan Lodge & Golf Resort. With self-cleaning grease interceptors, problems that kitchen effluent can cause are one less concern for a busy person. However, putting the grease interceptors out of mind is not always the case. “I’m the chief engineer and could find anybody to take care of the Big Dippers. However, I consider them ‘my babies.’ Every once in a while I like to get down there myself and check them over. The Big Dipper has done everything we needed it to do.”