Now
- Stop the water. Plugs out of the three-compartment sink, dish machine off, no mop buckets down any drain.
- Contain with absorbent, not with a hose. Grease water hosed to a floor drain goes straight into the interceptor that just overflowed, or past it.
- Lift the lid if you can reach it. Grease at the outlet baffle means the tank is full; a thin cap and a backed-up floor means the blockage is downstream.
- Call and say what you saw. That decides pump-out versus line clearing.
If any of it reached the sewer
Reno Environmental Control is on call around the clock for spills at (775) 722-4660. In Sparks, the code requires notifying the public works director immediately and following with a written statement within five days (SMC 13.36.110(A)). Reporting it yourself is cheaper than being traced to it: Reno can add the cost of clearing or repairing city facilities to your sewer bill (12.16.814), and a documented same-day pump-out is the record that argues for you.
The health inspection risk
Standing grease water in a kitchen is a sanitarian finding regardless of the sewer side. Photograph the floor after cleanup, keep the trip ticket from the pump-out, and note the time. Two pieces of paper close most of these.
Why it happened
An interceptor overflows when the grease cap and solids have taken the working volume the water needs. In Reno that is a permit condition, not just a mess: the tank “must be cleaned whenever the combined thickness of the floating greases and settled solids is greater than 25 percent of the design hydraulic depth” ((ii)a). The calculator finds the interval that keeps you off this page.