Oil down drains costing Twin Falls

TWIN FALLS, Idaho (KMVT/KSVT) — Pouring grease down your kitchen sink can cause a number of serious and expensive plumbing problems, not just for you, but also for the city where you live.

“A lot of people ask well aren’t drains designed to handled that and no,” says Josh Palmer.

Josh Palmer with the City of Twin Falls says during the holidays there’s been an uptick in food scraps, cooking oils and fog fats backing up the wastewater plants, causing damage that’s expensive to fix.

“We’ve had several thousand dollars in claims filed by people who had either their drains effected by other people who was dumping greases or the person who was dumping the grease, it effected their home or business,” says Palmer.

Christopher Sainsbury is a local plumber and says his business get calls for clogged drains on a daily basis.

“It’s a pretty common occurrence,” says Sainsbury. “A lot of people believe that if they run enough hot water that they can pour a skillet full of bacon oil or hamburger grease or vegetable oil down the sink and it doesn’t clog up and back their system up right away, and because of that they think it’s generally okay and that’s kind of a false notion.”

Sainsbury adds that constantly doing that can cause bigger issues in the sewer outside of your house, which can lead to your house flooding.

“In other unique circumstances it doesn’t really cause a problem for the homeowner, but it does accumulate and cools in the city’s main system further down the block,” says Sainsbury.

Palmer says it’s not just residents causing these issues, places like restaurants and community kitchens are also a factor. Twin Falls City code requires them to have grease traps, but that’s not always the case.

“We try to do education before enforcement, so we’ll approach those business, some we have spoken to more than once and if it gets to the point where is goes beyond education that when we take on enforcement,” says Palmer

Meanwhile, the city is working on additional measures to help prevent this from becoming a bigger issue.

Copyright 2025 KMVT. All rights reserved.