When it comes to “fatbergs” — large globs made from wet wipes, cooking oil, and other stuff we flush — clogging the sewers, sometimes extreme measures are necessary. To wit: In an effort to finally dislodge a fatberg that caused a sewer overflow in Baltimore recently, city officials are now resorting to more aggressive approach.
Baltimore City Department of Public Works workers have already tried scraping off parts of it, but this week they’ve been aiming a high-pressure nozzle at the gross mass to blast it apart, reports The Baltimore Sun.
A giant vacuum will then suck up the remaining pieces. Though it’s unclear how this fatberg stacks up agains tother massive clogs — like the 820-foot bane of London’s sewer system — the department estimates that it’ll take about a week to dispose of the fatberg entirely.
“It may not be all that quick because once they get the gunk out of there, there might be spots where the pipes have to be replaced,” a spokesperson for the Department told the Sun. “You never know what problems we could run into.”
(Indeed, we can only imagine what kind of fatberg goblins may be inhabiting the inner recesses of this thing. Shudder.)
As city officials have warned residents in other fatberg-prone locales, the Department is once again asking folks not to send things like wet wipes, cooking oils and greases, and other stuff down the drain.
“We can’t treat our toilets like our trash cans,” an administrator with the city’s pollution control program told the Sun.
If watching a fatberg at rest is your thing, here’s a video:
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist
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