WALNUT CREEK, Calif. — The modern dry cleaner may be a weekly stop for many people, especially in areas with uniformed workers and/or higher incomes.
This frequent destination can drive business into a shopping center, especially those tenanted with other essential services, hence the persistence of this business that is often cash-based, low-profit, and family-operated.
Environmental challenges can arise to the owner or buyer of a shopping center or pad site with such a facility, due to the historical or current use of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) as the cleaning agent.
Operations, if improper, may have spilled VOCs onto floor surfaces from drycleaning machine operations or stain removal by hand. If floor surfaces are cracked or other pathways to the environment exist, then soil, groundwater, and air vapor spaces beneath the building can be impacted.
Contamination at higher amounts can sometimes require testing and cleanup up to $1 million or more, but most sites require far less, and many none at all.
The VOC cleaning agent has changed over years, and since the 1950s has been mostly a chlorinated type known as perchloroethylene, aka PCE or “perc.”
In the 1990s, “green” solvents emerged, which are still VOCs, e.g. DF-2000 or EcoSolv, yet without chlorination.
These are isoparaffins — multi-chained, saturated petroleum distillates (naphtha) — which pose reduced health risks to workers and the environment, but still have extensive regulations that have increased considerably in most states in the past decade or so.
COMPLIANCE COMFORT LEVEL
For buyers, request to see the compliance calendar information (described in Part 1) as part of an Environmental Site Assessment (ESA).
In the event an ASTM Phase II ESA is recommended, which can be limited to sub-flooring vapor, but may involve soil and groundwater sampling, it is important to understand that soil and groundwater have firm standards, but air testing results may be compared to regulatory guidelines in many jurisdictions.
The difference is the level of effort needed to bring the comfort level of both buyer and seller to an agreeable risk position.
For example, triggering a sub-flooring gas guideline may not mean remediation is needed, but further investigation usually is required. This can include additional testing, including in the indoor spaces housing the dry cleaner, and adjacent tenants. Note that OSHA limits for drycleaner spaces are magnitudes higher than for other tenants.
More testing can simply confirm there’s a problem.
Then other strategies come into play: modeling and/or risk assessment, which can be straightforward and cost-effective ways to show that the actual risk to human health (air) and the environment (soil, groundwater) are within acceptable limits.
Your environmental consultant should be able to clearly explain this process in 10 minutes or less, then the steps to achieve this outcome can take a week, depending upon the site complexity, and assuming enough data is gathered.
However, if modeling/risk assessment still shows there is VOC presence above acceptable levels (state requirements can vary widely — and many have been implemented or updated in only the past three to five years), then sub-slab/indoor space mitigative measures will be needed, including depressurization systems, HVAC upgrades, and/or soil and groundwater cleanup.
The latter should be the last approach taken to resolve VOC impacts.
To read Part One, go HERE.
Have a question or comment? E-mail our editor Dave Davis at [email protected].