Baltimore Workers Remove "Fatberg" Of Grease From Sewer Pipe

BALTIMORE (CBSDFW.COM/AP) — A "fatberg" that may have taken beyond half a century to grow below Baltimore has been removed.

CBS news station WJZ reports the city's Public Works department used a camera, pressure washer and truck-mounted industrial vacuum to clear the mass of curdled grease, wet wipes and other waste.

Pat Boyle with the Baltimore City Department of Public Works says it's all those things besides sewage that caused the problem. "Anything you might cook, grease, butter, mayonnaise, anything your grandmother said don't put down the drain."

Workers resorted to the strategy Monday after they'd begun scraping pieces off last month.

The notorious glob was found clogging up to 85 percent of a 24-inch pipe near Penn Station. It's blamed for causing more than 1 million gallons of sewage to overflow into the Jones Fall stream. It's the culmination of objects caked along a pipe's walls that shouldn't go down drains.

Boyle says, "We can't treat our toilets like our trash cans."

(© Copyright 2017 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)