KXXV-TV News Channel 25 - Central Texas News and Weather for Waco, Temple, Killeen | City and restaurants try to prevent further grease problems

City and restaurants try to prevent further grease problems

by Natasha Chen

KILLEEN - Killeen's south wastewater treatment plant is being fixed, after an overwhelming concentration of restaurant grease broke down the diffusers in that plant. But city officials and restaurant owners continue to debate the effectiveness of an ordinance to prevent this from happening again.

A new machine has been proposed to restaurant owners with the promise of eliminating 99 percent of the problem. Unfortunately, it can cost up to $5,000.

"It's the cost of doing business," said Tim Lyons, the owner of The Kettle Restaurant. "If it's another thing we have to do, then we'll have to do it."

Lyons said that no one has ever informed him of his restaurant being tested for grease levels.

He said that he would love "some kind of tax break. I don't know, that would be great. I don't think we should pay for everything, because everything we pay goes right down the line to our customers."

Dick Young, the owner of Big Daddy's BBQ, said that the cost of such a machine would be far greater than paying a fine for violating the city ordinance.

Young said, "The city of Killeen would be better off going in and participating on that and giving the restaurateurs a break to prevent that from happening. If it costs $2,000 or $5,000 per restaurant, look at the tax revenue that these restaurants are bringing into the city of Killeen and the amount of business they're bringing in. Why beat them in the head?"

Young said that owners of smaller restaurants would have a hard time staying afloat, particularly because "we've been hit with a large minimum wage increase, our food costs have gone up in the last two years almost 60 percent, and now this."

"A lot of [restaurant owners] are going to sit back and say ok, give me the $500 fine. You gotta catch me 10 or 15 times before I'm even on what [the new machine] costs," he said.

But Killeen city councilman Scott Cosper said that city staff are working on a stronger ordinance.

"There's not any teeth in that as far as enforcement and fines," Cosper said of the existing ordinance. "We are looking at bringing to the committee an updated version that would allow penalties and redundancies as far as for our staff to regularly check and inspect those grease traps."

Cosper also said that repeat offenders would face fines "to the point where it wouldn't be a good decision to ignore it and pay the fine."

The most recent test results from the Bell County Water Control and Improvement District No. 1 show improved grease levels since earlier this summer, but the general manager there said that those improvements could be due to the large amount of recent rainfall, which could have diluted the problem.