Dry Cleaner Program

Introduction

Around 230 dry cleaners operate in Oregon. Dry cleaners use solvents, many of which are potentially hazardous, and it’s important that these substances are handled properly to protect human health and the environment. Oregon’s Dry Cleaner Program, created in 1995, allows DEQ to regulate dry cleaners to ensure they operate in an environmentally safe manner, and to collect fees from them to fund cleanup of past contamination.

The program started through the Oregon Legislature’s passage of House Bill 3216, creating Oregon’s dry cleaner statute (Oregon Revised Statute 465.500). Oregon’s dry cleaning industry proposed the legislation to address liability concerns under Oregon’s cleanup law. That law requires responsible parties to pay for cleanup of contaminated property. Unfortunately, dry cleaner cleanups are very costly (sometimes exceeding $1 million for one site), and may exceed the value of the dry cleaning business. The dry cleaning industry worried that cleanup costs could put many dry cleaners out of business, killing jobs and leaving empty storefronts across Oregon, and potentially leaving no responsible parties to finish the cleanups.

Environmental contamination at dry cleaner sites can occur from spills or leaks of solvent. In addition, before the risks were widely known, many dry cleaners contaminated their properties by throwing spent filters and sludge on the ground, or pouring spent solvent and wastewater into a floor drain or leaky sanitary sewer. Dry cleaning solvents can contaminate soil and groundwater, flow toward nearby drinking water wells, evaporate into neighboring buildings, or affect workers who do excavation in contaminated soil.

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, a federal law passed in 1980 and amended in 1984, increased regulation of hazardous waste. Dumping practices that previously were common are no longer allowed. However, at some dry cleaner facilities, past disposal and management practices have resulted in contamination of soil and groundwater that requires cleanup.

Oregon’s dry cleaner rules (Oregon Administrative Rules 340-120) require all dry cleaners to implement waste minimization and hazardous waste management practices designed to eliminate future releases of hazardous waste to the environment, in essence becoming a “zero release” industry. Dry cleaners pay annual fees to a fund, the Dry Cleaner Environmental Response Account, to be used by DEQ for cleaning up contaminated dry cleaner sites. Dry cleaners who pay fees and meet the other requirements are not liable under Oregon law for the cost of cleaning up a site contaminated due to past practices. The dry cleaner law essentially creates an insurance fund to pay cleanup costs for dry cleaners.

Oregon’s dry cleaner law has two major provisions: preventing future contamination and environmental cleanup.

Preventing Future Contamination

Oregon rules require all dry cleaners to implement waste minimization measures to reduce the amount of dry cleaning solvent emitted to the air and reduce the potential for spills of solvent to soil and groundwater. Reducing spilled and wasted dry cleaning solvent prevents impacts to neighbors and the environment while also saving the dry cleaner money on solvent costs.

Dry cleaners must meet the following waste minimization requirements:

• Use only acceptable types of dry cleaning equipment.
  
• Manage dry cleaning waste as hazardous waste, unless it has been determined to be non-hazardous.
  
• Manage solvent-contaminated wastewater according to state rules. The rules prohibit discharging solvent-contaminated wastewater to a sanitary sewer, septic system, boiler, on the ground, or to surface water.


• Provide leak containment under and around dry cleaning equipment and solvent-containing items.


• Submit annual reports of waste minimization and hazardous waste management practices.


• Report releases of dry cleaning solvent.
  

In addition, some additional requirements apply to dry cleaners that use perchloroethylene (perc) solvent:

Use only closed, direct-coupled delivery systems when receiving perc.
Comply with additional air quality monitoring and recordkeeping requirements.

Environmental Cleanup

Complying with waste minimization and reduction requirements is necessary for a facility to be eligible for cleanup using funding from the Dry Cleaner Environmental Response Account, which DEQ administers.

Perc, the most commonly used dry cleaning solvent over the past 50 years, is listed as a toxic chemical because it causes nerve and organ damage and likely can cause cancer in humans. Of Oregon’s approximately 230 dry cleaners, 60 percent still use perc. The remainder have switched to alternative solvents, which are generally less toxic than perc.

Sites contaminated with solvents must be cleaned up to a level that is protective of human health and the environment and is based on the current and reasonably likely future uses of the land and groundwater. DEQ publishes Risk-Based Concentrations for various chemicals, including perc, to help determine whether site concentrations could pose a risk.

Under the dry cleaner program, DEQ can use funds from the account to clean up a site or reimburse a dry cleaner owner or operator who conducts a cleanup. DEQ can only reimburse costs that are pre-approved.

Dry Cleaner Environmental Response Account

Oregon dry cleaners and dry stores (storefronts that do pick-up and drop-off for dry cleaners) pay fees to DEQ‘s dry cleaner program annually. The fees are deposited into the Dry Cleaner Environmental Response Account and then used to conduct assessment and cleanup of contaminated dry cleaner sites. Dry cleaner fees provide the account with about $500,000 each year, which is dwarfed by the $100 million (roughly estimated) that it would take to clean up all contaminated dry cleaner sites in Oregon. DEQ tries to carefully prioritize cleanup work to make the funds go as far as possible.

Fees paid annually to the Dry Cleaner Environmental Response Account include:

• $500 for any dry cleaning facility that used any solvent prior to January 1998;
  
• $500 for any dry cleaning facility that uses perchloroethylene;
  
• A fee of 1 percent of dry cleaning revenues
  
• Solvent fees (paid by solvent suppliers) of $10 for each gallon of perchloroethylene and $2 for each gallon of other solvent purchased.
  

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