In June 2013, a maintenance engineer at a Hampton Inn in Duncan, South Carolina noticed something strange: a septic truck kept backing up to a closed Denny’s restaurant. His 911 call would crack open one of the largest environmental crimes in Upstate South Carolina history.
In this episode, former Spartanburg Water CEO Sue Schneider takes us inside the crisis that unfolded when routine lab tests revealed PCB contamination—toxic industrial chemicals banned since the 1970s—in the wastewater system. What followed was a frantic scramble involving 36 frack tanks, 1.2 million gallons of contaminated sludge, and a cleanup operation stretching from November 2013 to February 2014.
We trace the investigation from that grease trap behind the Denny’s to a federal courtroom, where a judge handed down an 18-month prison sentence for Clean Water Act violations. Proper disposal would have cost $6,000. The actual cleanup: $2.5 million.
In this episode:
- How PCBs ended up in a modern wastewater system decades after being banned
- The emergency response that kept Spartanburg’s treatment plant running while contaminated
- Why the industry had to completely rethink grease trap security
- The insurance battle that left ratepayers covering most of the cost
Guest: Sue Schneider, former CEO, Spartanburg Water System
