Grease is the word for Bend city worker’s duty

Oakley Taylor calls herself the grease queen.

Not because she is a fan of fried food, but because she runs the FOG or fats, oils and grease program for the city of Bend.

“Your grease in your restaurant, it’s like garbage out on the street — everybody has to be responsible for their own,” Taylor said.

Taylor helps them do that.

“Since we’ve been doing the FOG program, we’ve reduced a lot of grease going into the sewer line by about 60 percent,” Taylor said.

Taylor is an industrial pretreatment technician. Her job is to organize cleaning records for restaurant grease traps and grease interceptors.

“I tend to breathe out of my mouth when I open these,” Taylor said.

What can be a very stinky process…

“This is the aftermath. This is the remnants of what we take in,” Taylor said.

She takes samples of the accumulation in those traps and interceptors.

Fats, oils and grease can be a major problem for Bend’s sewer system.

“The grease is very corrosive to the sewer lines, especially when it sits in there,” Taylor said. “It can accumulate and cause sewer blockages.”

This can lead to sewer overflows. But it all can be prevented with education for restaurant owners — and even homeowners..

“We really try to stress that people need to scrap, wipe and not rinse going into their drain to keep a lot of the food solids and grease out of the sewer system. Just have it go to the landfill,” Taylor said.

It’s a crucial and sometimes dirty job that keeps Bend from sliding down a slippery slope.