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Who would have thought a little grease going down the drain could cost Blount County governments and businesses hundreds of thousands of dollar each year?

Anyone who owns a restaurant or a business with a cafeteria knows it could and does, and that it's about to get a lot worse. Thanks to what officials call an artificially low market value for waste grease removal created by the Knoxville Utilities Board, anyone with a grease trap in Blount County is going to feel some serious sticker shock on April 1 when KUB stops accepting grease from outside Knox County.

A grease trap is a contraption that is attached to the waste water line to catch and hold grease that is put down a drain. If the grease were allowed to continue down the line, it could harden, collect and damage the pipes.

Grease traps have to be pumped out periodically and the ensuing waste grease has to be disposed of.

Right now, KUB charges about $55 to dump 1,000 gallons of waste grease. In September 2006, it announced waste grease from outside Knox County would no longer be accepted. According to KUB Spokeswoman Jennifer Fern, the company plans to get out of the grease business altogether during the next three years.

"Grease coats equipment, creating high maintenance situations, treatment issues, odor problems, potential for permit violations, things like that," she said. 'We're pretty confident that private enterprise will set up to fill the grease treatment void that we're leaving there, as they have in other parts of the country."

Increased costs

A private company, OnSite Environmental, has already stepped up in Knoxville and will open its doors April 2. But in the very best case, the cost is going to be $140 per 1,000 gallons of waste grease; in the worst case, it will cost $460 per 1,000 gallons. That is a cost increase of 155 to 736 percent.

According to Robert Box, owner of Tennessee Mountain Septic and Grease Trap Service, his company collected 288,000 gallons of waste grease from 17 schools in the Blount County school system in 2006, and that's just the contract amount. Considering emergency cleanings, the total is probably even more than that, he said.

That means the school system is looking at an increased charge for grease disposal of between $24,480 and $116,640 per year, depending on the percentage of solids in the collected grease, Box said. Box's charge to pump and remove the grease will not change. It is the amount charged to actually dump the goop that is going to go through the roof.

No information on the amount of waste grease produced last year by the Maryville or Alcoa school systems was available.

John Campbell, director of administrative services at Alcoa schools, said administration officials knew about the issue and, while he didn't have any hard numbers handy, was sure the system was going to see an increase in cost.

"We're expecting an increase," he said. "We just don't know what it's going to be."

Jeff Rose, director of the Maryville Department of Water Quality Control, explained that processing waste grease is an expensive task.

"The reason a private company has not moved into the area in the past is because KUB was charging so little to get rid of it nobody could make any money," he said.

Maryville had considered installing equipment to deal with the waste grease, but the cost of purchasing, manning and maintaining it would be so much that the city would have to charge rates at least as high, if not higher, than OnSite Environmental in Knoxville. So, it just didn't make sense to do it.

"The price was going to go up regardless," Rose said.

Maryville is considering teaming up with Sevier County,  which had also been taking grease to KUB, to petition for an extension past the April 1 cutoff, but time is running out.

Box understands the impact could be dramatic for area schools and larger-scale restaurants, but it's the little mom-and-pop places that are really going to take a hit.

"If the cost goes any higher, they're going to have to close up," Box said. 'They can't afford the disposal fee."

Box feels the local municipalities should step up and help with the grease issue.

"They need to build their own facility to handle their own grease," he said.

Sharon Crisp, an employee at Tennessee Mountain Septic, was surprised the impending April 1 cutoff wasn't on the top of local governments' discussion lists.

"It's not talked about," she said. "That's what we can't understand. No one wants to talk about this problem."

Rose was sympathetic of the cost increase. "Yeah, it's a significant amount," he said. But the government and private businesses don't really have much choice in the matter.

"Because (private collection), that's the future of grease waste, and there's no other way around it that I know of."