Environmental Problems Facing Drycleaners

Information from FLARE

• Hundreds of thousands of drycleaner owners and employees around the country are financially imperiled by the threat of Superfund-type clean ups. The value of their property is shaken.
• Banks, insurers, and property owners fear to deal with drycleaners for fear of incurring environmental liability themselves. There is also an eventual likelihood of massive tort suits by supposed "victims" that could shut down most of these small businesses.
• The drycleaning industry, with approximately 34,000 facilities, employs over 225,000 people. Drycleaners operate in every state and congressional district. Most drycleaning shops are small "mom and pop" businesses, run by their owners.
• Over 99 percent of exposure to perc occurs in the workplace, where more than half a century of epidemiological studies have revealed little cause for concern. Much less than one percent of total exposure comes from the air, water, soil, and other areas regulated by the EPA, including hazardous waste dumps not directly relevant to drycleaners. This fraction of one percent is responsible for virtually all of the present controversy.
• At sites around the country, EPA and others are setting remediation levels of perc in soil and groundwater, for lack of a standard, at the federal drinking water standard. While we certainly want our drinking water as clean as possible, that does not mean that we should spend billions of dollars cleaning up dirt, where there is little or no risk of actual exposure or other justification.
• EPA's standard for soil, surface water, groundwater, and other environmental media is 5 parts per billion (ppb). This EPA standard is based directly on the standards for drinking water under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). For water meant for drinking, the 5 ppb standard is feasible and reasonable; for the dirt under a shopping mall parking lot, it makes no sense at all.
• The Occupational Safety & Health Administration's permissible exposure limit for perc is 100 parts per million (ppm)), an eight-hour time-weighted average which is presumed safe for a lifetime of exposure. A recent attempt to lower the level to 25 ppm was rejected by the Court of Appeals as unsupported, largely for feasibility reasons.

For further information: Marshall Lee Miller or Charlotte E. Giddings at Baise & Miller, P.C. (202) 331-9100