The Paul Oliver Memorial Hospital, Frankfort, MI, Installs Automatic Grease Interceptor To Solve FOG Problem

The Paul Oliver Memorial Hospital will soon celebrate 55 years of continued progress in providing quality health care for the people of Benzie County, MI. The hospital became an affiliate of the Munson Healthcare system in 1986 and is the first regional referral center equipped to provide critical care for patients from 22 counties. Services in specialties such as neurology, oncology, cardiology and orthopedics are provided through more than 300,000 annual patient visits. It was in 1986 that the new 18-bed Long-term Care Unit began operation. In 2000, the hospital committed the funding for equipment and a new kitchen to provide meals for residents of the Long-term Care Unit. The new kitchen opened for operation at Paul Oliver in 2001.

Food preparation generates wastewater containing fats, oils and grease (FOG) that can enter and clog a facility's drainage system and a community's sanitary sewer system. Without proper treatment, clogged pipes can cause backups that can be costly to clean up, as happened at the hospital. As a preventative measure, a semiautomatic manual grease interceptor was installed at the hospital. But lately, backups in the hospital's kitchen drains were occurring every 7-10 days. The culprit was the malfunctioning grease interceptor, installed in the floor. As a temporary fix, expensive chemicals (enzymes) were being added to the drainage system to help dissolve the fats, oils and grease that were accumulating in the pipes. Both measures failed to eliminate the clogging pipes problem!