The High Tab of Degreasing

Hoping to reduce beach pollution, several Southern California coastal cities are exploring whether restaurants should be forced to install costly systems for disposing of cooking grease.

But restaurateurs and public officials said there isn’t enough room in some seaside business districts to bury the bulky collection tanks. And with installation costs that could reach $50,000, many mom-and-pop operations said they simply cannot afford the expense without government assistance.

The situation has many restaurant owners in places like San Clemente and Laguna Beach on edge--wanting to do their part to protect the beaches that help provide their livelihoods while also wondering how they will survive.

“At least they could have given us better notice, so we could save up some money each year,” said John Gomez, owner of Love Burger in San Clemente. “I’m not a corporate operation. I’m going to be impacted a lot. And so are a lot of businesses in San Clemente. It could put us in the hole.”

Ross Bartlett, who owns two restaurants in Laguna Beach, expects to pay a hefty price. And he considers himself one of the luckier ones. The 50-year-old building housing the Jolly Roger and Laguna Beach Brewing Co. sits on one of the city’s larger lots and has a large basement where grease traps can be placed.

Still, “it’s going to be a real hardship. And I’m not going to have to jackhammer up the sidewalk like a lot of these [smaller restaurants] are going to have to do,” he said.

The push to require grease interceptors in existing restaurants comes amid increasing public awareness of how urban runoff and blocked sewers are polluting California beaches as well as rivers and creeks.

A recent Orange County Grand Jury report highlighted cooking grease from restaurants as a significant cause of polluted runoff and recommended a countywide code be adopted to improve regulation and enforcement across the region.

Officials and environmentalists argue that too much hot fat from skillets and fryers is sliding its way into sewer lines, coagulating into thick gumbos that are sticking to pipes, hardening and causing blockages that lead to spills.

A growing number of Southern California cities are updating their codes to require grease interceptors in all new restaurants. But until now, most existing restaurants have been protected by grandfather provisions.

In what the California Restaurant Assn. said is the first mandate of its kind in California, the Laguna Beach City Council in August voted unanimously to require 75 restaurants to install these gadgets within the next 18 months. Similar ordinances are being considered in San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano, Newport Beach and Huntington Beach. San Diego and Oxnard require restaurants to treat their cooking grease but do not in all cases mandate that they install interceptors.

“After years of inadequate regulations, it’s finally starting to come around and bite them,” said Jon L. Kinley, a consultant helping these districts craft new rules. “Now the cities are being forced to face the music and pay for past sins.”

In many restaurants, grease is collected in small traps under sinks and stoves, then dumped into big barrels or drums that are picked up regularly by hauling companies for about $30 a month.

The typical grease interceptor is a 750-gallon holding tank. It measures 10 feet long by 5 feet wide and 5 feet deep. Wastewater is drained from kitchen sinks and wash basins through laterals--small pipes--and filtered through two or three chambers, where the grease floats to the top. Outside contractors regularly pump the systems clean by stretching vacuum hoses through manhole covers. The grease and residue is taken to sanitation sites. The filtered, cleaned-up water flows into sewers.

An advantage of interceptor systems is that they’re cleaner than old-fashioned grease-trap systems. Officials are concerned that grease is getting into the sewer system when skillets and frying pans are washed in the sinks or grease from the stoves is poured down the drain. Traps on stoves would continue to supplement interceptor systems.

But installation costs for interceptor systems range from $15,000 to $20,000. And that does not include the costs of reconfiguring plumbing systems to accommodate the traps, nor the costs of digging up and restoring sidewalks.

“Our main issue is that they’re so extremely cost-prohibitive,” said Kristin Olsen, spokeswoman for the California Restaurant Assn. The group, with nearly 18,000 members, fought successfully against a similar requirement once considered by Los Angeles.

Trino Mendez, a manager at Gina’s Pizza south of Laguna Village, estimates it will cost about $50,000 to get the work done. But he said the owner, a surfer, will be willing to spend whatever it takes to keep the beaches clean.

Still, Mendez and others suggest that the city subsidize the expense.

“The city ought to stand behind some of these little guys and help them out,” said Bartlett.

For others, space is a bigger factor.

Javiar’s Cantina & Grill, a Mexican restaurant in Laguna Beach, is already so squeezed for space that it shares two grease barrels with a few other restaurants on the same block.

“Where are we going to put the interceptors?” owner Javiar Sosa asked, a question echoed by the owner of the Greeter’s Corner Restaurant across the street.

“If we’re going to do it, it’s going to have to be in the street,” said Jose Abbasi.

Laguna Beach officials admit the mandate is fraught with financial and logistical challenges. Right-of-ways may have to be encroached in many cases. Some restaurants might simply have no room.

A workshop will be held Sept. 25 to go over the new regulations. In the meantime, the city is trying to see whether state funds are available to help pay for the interceptors. The council might consider modifying the measure after that meeting.

“The problem here is restaurants were built in a time when nobody thought about this and they are configured in such a way that there isn’t much room in the facility,” said City Manager Kenneth C. Frank. “And in some cases, there isn’t much room in the street. We have a difficult situation.”