When an industrial/commercial equipment cleaning and servicing facility in New Jersey received a notice of violation from local regulators for discharging oil and grease into the sewer system, it was the beginning of a quite dramatic environmental and regulatory situation.
The company had maintained a strong record for multi-media environmental compliance and had long operated well within its wastewater discharge permit limitations. Among other tasks, they sampled and reported their wastewater data monthly.
All the sampling data looked good month in, month out and confirmed they were operating properly. But then one day… they suddenly faced accusations of noncompliance and significant fines from regulators. Regulator seven threatened to shut them down.
That’s when my team and I at Envision Environmental, Inc. were called in.
What we discovered is that the root cause of the issue… was a lack of communication. The solution? Bringing the two sides – facility and regulators – to problem solve together.
A Confusing Regulatory Landscape
This facility’s wastewater was handled by two separate authorities: one responsible for maintaining the sewer lines and another for treating the wastewater at the regional treatment works.
The company paid fees to both, but it wasn’t always clear which entity handled which part of the wastewater management process – or how each fee was used.
That confusion came to a head when the conveyance authority issued a notice of violation. They claimed oil and grease buildup was clogging its sewer lines. You may have seen news coverage of similar issues in other parts of the country and the world. The oil and grease blockages are often called “fat bergs.”
However, as I said, the facility’s discharge reports, which were submitted to the treatment authority, showed no violations whatsoever. The company’s data showed it was in compliance with every standard for oil, grease, temperature, and flow in terms of the wastewater it was discharging into the sewer lines.
Understandably, the company was baffled. If their discharge met all regulatory requirements, how could they be responsible for the clogged lines that were located well outside their facility? Because our client was the only facility in the immediate area with the potential to discharge wastewater with oil and grease, the conveyance authority assumed they were at fault.
The company asked Envision Environmental, Inc. to help investigate the issue, as well as “mediate” between them and the two regulators.
Finding the Source
After a detailed review of the facility’s operations, we discovered that the wastewater discharged from the plant was warm enough to keep oil and grease in liquid form. But, while the wastewater was incompliance at the point of discharge, it began to cool and the oil and grease solidified as it traveled through the sewer lines. This caused oil and grease to accumulate inside the sewer lines, forming blockages.
But unfortunately, the issue was a little more complicated.
We uncovered a key piece of information early in our investigation: the conveyance authority hadn’t cleaned the sewer lines in the area for some time, despite collecting the maintenance fees from companies, including our client, to keep the sewer lines clean and operational. Over time, the lack of cleaning allowed the oil and grease buildup to worsen—creating the very conditions that led to the violation notice.
When this was uncovered, tensions between our client and the regulator escalated quickly. Heated meetings followed, with both sides accusing the other of negligence.
That’s when my team and I stepped in to facilitate productive communication to get to the root cause of this complicated problem.
Communication is one of the Core4 principles I follow. You must have effective communication for your facility to stay efficient, profitable, and to create a strong basis for handling environmental, health, and safety responsibilities.
As a manager, a key part of your job is clearly communicating with everyone in your organization, from senior leadership to frontline staff. But also, communicating with the regulators is vital.
I will admit that many companies see regulators as adversaries - and they only interact when something goes wrong. Such a view and approach towards regulators works against you, as we’ve seen in this case.
A better approach is to stay proactive and keep open communication with your friendly local regulators – remember, regulators are people, just like you.
Connect with your local authorities. Introduce yourself. Ask for guidance. Then, when questions arise about permits or potential EH&S issues, you’ll have a go-to contact.
They won’t ignore violations, but they’re far more likely to help than rush straight to enforcement.
Keep this in mind: regulators want a compliant facility—and ultimately, so do you.
Turning Conflict into Collaboration
For effective communication, both sides must listen and be willing to learn.
That’s why our first task was to restore dialogue between the two sides. Acting as neutral mediators, we brought both parties together to discuss evidence, responsibilities, and how we could achieve the shared goal of compliance.
It kind of resembled a counseling session: helping each side see the other’s perspective and move from blame to collaboration.
The result was a major turning point. A new administration at the conveyance authority admitted that past leadership had failed to routinely clean the lines, acknowledging that the system’s condition contributed to the problem. They committed to turn that around. Meanwhile, our client agreed to evaluate whether process changes at the facility could help reduce their oil and grease discharge—beyond what was already required.
This was possible because the parties decided to communicate and work together, rather than fight against each other.
A Bonus: Operational Improvements and Cost Savings
In the process of reviewing the facility’s operations, we noticed an opportunity for both enhanced compliance and cost savings.
The industrial/commercial equipment that the company was cleaning still contained small amounts of residual material when it was brought to the facility for cleaning and servicing.
By removing this material before cleaning and servicing the equipment, the company could prevent it from entering the wastewater stream. Not only did this reduce the contaminant load of their wastewater (and thus make them eligible for lower user charge fees from the treatment authority), but the recovered material could be resold back to customers, creating a new revenue stream.
This simple change that Envision Environmental, Inc. suggested resulted in multiple benefits:
The company also worked to upgrade its own wastewater treatment system. The new design improved oil and grease removal efficiency by more than 99%, ensuring long-term compliance even as production scaled up.
The Final Negotiation
Now that our client had improved their process – leading to cost savings – and communication issues with the regulators had been addressed, it was now time to deal with the notice of violation and associated penalties.
Rather than paying steep fines, we proposed redirecting the money to be paid in fines toward improvements to our client’s wastewater treatment system — funding both the treatment system upgrade and the long-overdue cleaning of the sewer lines.
This pragmatic compromise satisfied both parties.
Over the following months, as the sewer lines were cleaned and the new treatment system went online, oil and grease blockages were eliminated. The facility remained in full compliance, and the strained relationship with the regulator turned into a trusted partnership.
Where to Go From Here
Poor communication, unclear responsibilities, and lack of transparency can turn what should be manageable EH&S issues into crises. But when lines of communication are opened and everyone involved works toward a common goal, all sides win. And when dealing with regulators, you should focus on collaboration, not confrontation to find effective solutions.
Are you dealing with a regulator and not sure how to proceed? My team and I at Envision Environmental, Inc. are happy to help. Just call me, Mark Roman, at 609-208-1885 or get in touch via email at markroman@envisionenvironmental.com
