IMPORTANT: An organization called the Pacific Northwest Pollution Prevention Resource Center has contacted both the City of Seattle and King County regarding their concern about food trucks illegally dumping wastewater and the harmful effects of this illegal dumping on the Duwamish River. It appears that the goal of this pollution prevention organization is to help educate and inform mobile food vendors about the harm of improper wastewater disposal and inform about environmentally safe and legal methods of disposing of food vendor wastewater, which often contains fats, oils, and grease (FOG). Luckily, they have offered to include the WA State Food Truck Association in this discussion, and we welcome the opportunity to assist in this educational effort.
We are NOT aware of any mobile food vendors who are doing this, but both the City of Seattle and King County are taking this issue very seriously and have stated that moving forward they will start specifically looking for food trucks that are illegally dumping their wastewater. It is reasonable to assume that this pollution prevention organization will be expressing their concerns about potential food truck pollution to other counties as well, so don’t assume this only applies to King County food truck operators.
Remember: The only legal place to dispose of your wastewater is in the location indicated on your approved County Health Plan Review. All other locations are prohibited by law. Food truck operators who are found to be illegally dumping their wastewater could face fines and penalties from federal, state, and local regulators. These food truck operators could also be featured on the local TV news or in print media: “Are Food Trucks Polluting Our Cities?”
As someone who has lobbied state and local government officials on behalf of the mobile food industry for the last 6-years, I can tell you that there are some well-represented interest groups and individual business owners (usually brick-and-mortar restaurant owners), who would like to see food trucks banned from operating in cities. This is exactly the kind of issue that they’ve been looking for to justify their push to ban food trucks.
Food trucks are often guests in the cities where they vend, and causing any negative environmental impact is unacceptable and could quickly result in local regulators requiring wastewater disposal logbooks, or other documented proof of proper wastewater disposal, or could result in an outright ban from vending in specific cities or counties. This is a very serious issue.
ALWAYS properly dispose of your wastewater:
1) To comply with the law.
2) To protect the environment.
3) To protect the food truck industry.
There is information about proper wastewater disposal in the Member Resources section of the WSFTA website, and we will be sending you more information about this issue as we learn more.
Per health code: 09135 Water and Wastewater, the person in charge shall ensure that the water system on the mobile food unit: is supplied from an approved source of water, is designed and constructed in an approved manner, is filled from the approved water source through a food-grade hose, is refilled as frequently as necessary to furnish enough hot and cold water for handwashing, food prep, utensil cleaning, sanitizing, and facility cleaning, has a water supply tank with a minimum capacity of five gallons for handwashing, stores liquid waste in a wastewater retention tank with at least fifteen percent more capacity than the water supply tank, and retains wastewater on the mobile food unit until disposed of by an approved method.
Per health code: 05425 Retention, drainage, and delivery operation and maintenance, and removing mobile food unit wastes - sewage and other liquid wastes must be removed from a mobile food unit at an approved waste servicing area or by a sewage transport vehicle in such a way that a public health hazard or nuisance is not created. You are not allowed to dispose of your unit wastes at any other location than what was approved in your submitted and approved plan review.
If you are applying for a commissary exemption and or need a disposal site other than a traditional commissary, you can get approved to use a Sanidump site, found in the listings here: https://www.sanidumps.com/
