ORANGE – The Orange Police Department is looking for the public’s help to catch an illegal grease-dumper.
They say grease, most likely from a restaurant, is entering the town’s sewer system, which mostly serves commercial establishments along the Boston Post Road corridor.
There are several companies in the state that pump grease out of mandated, below grade, grease traps for restaurants. That grease is then hauled to a facility for processing.
According to a press release, Orange Sewer Superintendent R. Scott Allen guesses that to save disposal costs, a hauler is dumping the grease somewhere along the Boston Post Road corridor into the town’s sewage system through a manhole, which then flows to the town’s main pumping station near Orange Center Road.
The grease severely impacts the ability of the pump station to function properly because the grease must be pumped out of the pump station, in order for the pump station to function as designed. This cleaning process has been occurring almost weekly for the past several months due to the illegal dumping, according to police.
Police speculate the illegal dumping is happening at some point from 500 Boston Post Road going east to the West Haven line. There are hundreds of manholes along that route and the dumping appears to occur mostly on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, but it is unknown if the grease is dumped during the day or at night.
There is also, at this point, no way of knowing if the grease is coming from town or is out-of-town grease.
Police are asking the public to call (203) 891-2130 and report any tank-style truck parked along the commercial properties on Boston Post Road.Officers are only interested in these trucks if they are parked in a commercial parking lot.
Police will then attempt to identify the trucks’ operators and determine if they are legitimately accessing the sewer system.
