National Clothesline

While EPA’s proposed revisions of its clean-air rules have received general assent from industry trade associations, the question of how to regulate “co-residential” cleaners is a bone of contention.

The International Fabricare Institute, the National Cleaners Association and the Halogenated Solvents Industry Alliance all submitted comments to EPA that support most of the proposal’s provisions. For most cleaners who use perc, the biggest change would be a requirement for more monitoring and testing for perc leaks, which would entail using a halogenated carbon leak detector for conducting monthly leak detection, in addition to the already required weekly inspection for leaks that can be spotted without measuring instruments.

EPA’s plan would also require that new drycleaning facilities use fourth-generation equipment, at a minimum. The fourth-generation requirement would also apply to about a dozen very large perc drycleaners who would also be subject to even more extensive leak detection programs.

On those points, EPA gets no argument from IFI, NCA or HSIA. But on the issue of regulating co-residential cleaners — that is, cleaners located in buildings that also contain residential units — the debate heats up.

EPA offered two options for regulating co-residential cleaners. The first, which received support from the industry associations, is technology based. If this rule were adopted, cleaners

in co-residential situations would need to use fourth-generation equipment, closed loop machines with refrigerated condensers and carbon adsorbers that capture perc inside the wheel. They would also need to enclose the equipment inside a vapor barrier to prevent perc emissions from escaping.

This is in line with restrictions New York currently places on “co-located” perc cleaners, which includes buildings shared with other businesses as well as residences.

EPA believes there are about 1,300 co-residential cleaners around the country, about 1,000 of which are either in New York or the San Francisco Bay Area, where co-located cleaners are also currently regulated. So if EPA’s estimate is correct, about 300 co-residential cleaners outside those areas would face additional federal requirements.

Another option offered by EPA stirred strong opposition from the industry associations. This option, called the residual risk proposal, would phase out perc cleaning in co-residential situations. New drycleaners in residential buildings would not be allowed to use perc; drycleaners in residential locations who are currently operating with perc would, when replacing their equipment, have to choose something other than perc.

IFI, NCA and HSIA strenuously objected to that proposal, saying that EPA does not have statutory authority to impose the risk-based standard in the first place and, beyond that, the risk calculations used by EPA are flawed.

Language in the original Clean Air Act specifically prohibits EPA from imposing risk-based standards on area sources such as drycleaners, the industry groups said. IFI noted that remarks included in the Congressional Record by Senators Steve Symms of Idaho and Daniel Moynihan of New York at the time the legislation was passed indicate that the intent was to regulate small drycleaners through technology-based rather than risk-based standards.

“It is abundantly cleaer that the agency was expressly prohibited from proposing risk-based standards form small area source drycleaners,” IFI said in its comments.

The associations also questioned EPA’s statutory authority to regulate indoor air. “The Clean Air Act only authorizes EPA to regulate air pollution that contributes to the degradation of ambient air (i.e., air outside of buildings),” HSIA commented.

The associations also argued that EPA had underestimated the impact of its proposal on drycleaners. Cleaners in co-residential locations facing new requirements would be especially impacted.

Beyond that, a likely effect of adopting the risk-based option, NCA said, would be to force cleaners to retire their perc equipment prematurely. Citing an “announcement effect,” NCA said landlords would respond to the new rules and perceived risk by forcing cleaners out of their locations or raising rents to compensate for lowered property values.

NCA said any type of ban on new installations of fourth-generation perc equipment would have “likely ruinous repercussions industry-wide” as other cleaners who share buildings with businesses or have sensitive nearby neighbors will be pressed to defend their use of perc.

Beyond the question of statutory authority, the associations objected to the risk figures EPA used in concluding that stronger regulation is needed.

HSIA said that if EPA wants to use a risk analysis in its rule-making it should base it on the agency’s own previous assessment. Instead EPA used risk numbers derived by the California Environmental Protection Agency which, HSIA said, “has been criticized as significantly overstating the risks associated with perc exposure based on faulty estimates of fractional metabolism in humans.”

While industry groups are trying to get EPA to pull back from phasing out perc in co-residential facilities and they criticize the agency’s risk analysis, other forces are pushing EPA to go even further in restricting perc and say the risks have been undervalued.

A comment submitted by Consumers Unions and co-signed by representatives of the Sierra Club, the New York Public Interest Research Group and the Citizen’s Environmental Coalition urged EPA to phase-out of all perc equipment except fourth-generation by 2008.

Further, the group said focusing only on co-residential facilities is a mistake and that regulations should be extended to co-located sources as in New York — that is, buildings shared with day care centers, food establishments and health facilities, other businesses.

For co-located facilities, the group rejected the technology-based option and instead asks EPA to ban new per equipment in all co-located facilities and to require the removal of perc equipment in such facilities by a certain, but unspecified, date.

“Owners would have the option of moving, switching to safer cleaning machines or of becoming drop-off retail locations only,” the group said.