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Learning What our Client Meant when He Asked About TSS and FOG
  • CASE STUDY: TSS/FOG

Learning What our Client Meant when He Asked About TSS and FOG

In the winter of 2018, one of our clients asked, “How does your Spilltration® Husky oil filter fabric work on FOG & TSS?” Not wanting to sound stupid, I excused myself for a few seconds and searched for the terms on my phone. The results left me even more clueless. I was pretty sure he wasn’t talking about “clouds that hug the earth” or “Fear Of God.” When I reemerged, I had to admit I didn’t know the terms. Our host graciously said, “Total Suspended Solids and Fats, Oils & Grease.”

Basin lined with Spilltration® Husky material

I breathed a sigh of relief because we had a lot of experience using Spilltration® Husky Pads for TSS & FOG. In the previous two years, we had contracted to launder thousands of greasy sand-covered gloves for the fracking industry.

We figured out how to clean the gloves’ oil, grease, and sand and restore them to near-new condition. The only problem was prefiltering the dirty, sand-filled wash water. So we built a Spilltration® basin in our slop sink and lined it with Spilltration® Husky material. The setup grabbed all of the suspended solids and grease. So, we had a hunch our products could work well for his problem.

Basin lined with Spilltration® Husky material.

I breathed a sigh of relief because we had a lot of experience using Spilltration® Husky Pads for TSS & FOG. In the previous two years, we had contracted to launder thousands of greasy sand-covered gloves for the fracking industry.

We figured out how to clean the gloves’ oil, grease, and sand and restore them to near-new condition. The only problem was prefiltering the dirty, sand-filled wash water. So we built a Spilltration® basin in our slop sink and lined it with Spilltration® Husky material. The setup grabbed all of the suspended solids and grease. So, we had a hunch our products could work well for his problem.

Basin lined with Spilltration® Husky material.
Basin lined with Spilltration® Husky material

Getting Compliant: TSS & FOG Control and Management

It turns out that our client’s company had been out of compliance with TSS & FOG measurements for a long time. He recently assumed the Clean Water Act duties for this site and was bound and determined to fix the problem.

We told him we thought our products would work and guaranteed we would refund his money if we failed to get him back in compliance. Long story short, he contracted us to install our first Spilltration® Husky Stormwater Filter System. Within weeks his TSS fell from more than 320 mg/L to under 20 mg/L – a 94% reduction. These results were well within the scope of his 100 mg/L limits under his NPDES permit. His FOG levels dropped to non-detect.

TSS in Stormwater

(1) A pile of storage yard silt, loaded with fine coal, gravel, and oily dirt at the head of a ditch that leads to a trout stream.

Total Suspended Solids in Stormwater

(2) This toxic brew piled up at a trout stream outfall two hundred feet down the ditch from the silt pile.

TSS & FOG Compliance

(3) We lined the ditch with Spilltration® Husky rolls and surrounded it with Husky filter dikes.

(4) As a final touch, we fabricated a Spilltration® filter sleeve at the head of the outfall culvert.

Staying Compliant: TSS & FOG Maintenance

Our HalenHardy® crews perform simple monthly maintenance of the system, and the client’s outfall measurements remain in compliance to this day. And thanks to this case, we gained a whole new set of stormwater filtration applications that we never imagined. That’s the power of literally living “in the trenches” with our customers.

TSS & FOG Maintenance

Spilltration® ditch liners and outfall protection systems control TSS & FOG and help you stay in compliance.

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