Thames Water 사가 지방, 원유, 윤활유(FOG: Fats, Oils and Grease)를 처리하는 새로운 시설을 운영하는 계약에 서명한지 몇 달도 채 지나지 않은 지금, 서리(Surrey) 킹스톤(Kingston) 지역 하수도에서 생성된 버스 크기의 음식물 지방 덩어리를 제거하였다. 

시설 관리자들은 이 젖은 물수건 등과 잘못 내려져 부패한 음식물 지방이 섞여 생성된 거대한 지방 덩어리를 'Fatberg[Fat(지방)+Iceberg(빙하)]‘라고 묘사했다.

Thames Water 사는 배수관에 잘못 흘러들어간 지방으로 인한 막힘 현상을 해결하는데 매달 100만 파운드를 써왔다. 이에 따른 결과로 매년 10만 9000km 길이의 하수도에서 약 8만 개의 막힘 현상을 해결한 것으로 드러났다.

Only months after utility Thames Water signed an agreement to help power a new facility with fats, oils and grease (FOG), it has removed a bus-sized lump of food fat from a sewer in Kingston, Surrey.

The utility described the fatberg as a lump of wrongly-flushed festering food fat mixed with wet wipes.

Each month Thames Water spends ￡1 million clearing blockages caused by fats wrongly poured down drains. Every year it removes 80,000 blockages from its 109,000 km of sewers.

In April a 20-year agreement was signed with 20C to supply 30 tonnes a day of fuel in the form of FOC, which will be used to generate 130 Gigawatt hours (see WWi story).

Being called the biggest fatberg discovered in British history, Thames Water said the recent discovery weighed 15 tonnes.

They warned that had it not been removed it could have led to wastewater flooding many homes, streets and businesses in the London suburb.

According to the BBC, CCTV investigations found the mound of fat had reduced the sewer to just 5% of its normal capacity.

Gordon Hailwood, waste contracts supervisor for Thames Water said: "While we've removed greater volumes of fat from under central London in the past, we've never seen a single, congealed lump of lard this big clogging our sewers before.

If we hadnt discovered it in time, raw sewage could have started spurting out of manholes across the whole of Kingston. It was so big it damaged the sewer and repairs will take up to six weeks.

[출처: Waterworld / 2013년 8월 6일]