What do you do with a retired IFI director who has spent the better part of the last 10 years volunteering time to the drycleaning industry? In the case of one director, you turn off the boiler and find a new way to help and educate other cleaners.
That’s exactly what former IFI director Debbie Barnett has done. After her team ended in July 2001, Barnett anticipated a “quiet retirement” from most volunteer activities with the industry and planned on devoting her time to working with her husband Chris in their Indianapolis cleaners and Laundromats. She stepped back into a volunteer leadership role as president of the Indiana Drycleaning & Laundry Association (IDLA), but other than that had no plans to take on any more challenges within the industry. Her plans changed when she and her father decided to sell Washboard Laundry & Cleaners, which he and Debbie’s mother had opened 20 years earlier.
“We made the decision to sell not only the business, but the property as well,” Barnett said. “Of course, that meant doing soil and groundwater samples. The results of those samples pretty much turned my world upside down.”
The results were downright ugly. Engineers hit groundwater at six feet, and there is a high amount of perc in that groundwater. Not only that, but the soil at six feet saw unsafe concentrations of vinyl chloride (a breakdown product of perc, and a known carcinogen). The source of the perc has been identified as leakage from a coin-op drycleaning operation that functioned in the 1960s.
Confronted with this news, Barnett dusted off her resources regarding contamination, began looking for an engineering firm she could work with long term, spent time getting the attorneys on board…and oh yes, she still had a business to help run and teenagers, dogs, and a household to tend to. Nothing uncomplicated about her life!
Her biggest fear was the fear any other drycleaner has felt when you find out your property is contaminated: How will we pay for it? Will we lose everything we’ve worked for? Protecting her father’s retirement became her overriding concern. “My dad means everything to me; since my mom’s death, I’m all he’s got since I have no brother or sisters,” she said.
In the middle of this maelstrom, a representative from EnviroForensics® , a company new to Indianapolis, approached her with a novel concept of how to pay for the cleanup. The company specializes in finding funding in older insurance policies, a process popularly know as insurance archeology (for more on insurance archeology, see Fabricare’s January 2002 issue).
Shortly after this meeting the company approached Barnett with a job offer she couldn’t refuse, and she’s now in charge of a part of the company that will work directly with drycleaners.
“I’m very excited about this new world opening up to me,” Barnett said. “Six months ago, if you had told me I’d be leaving this business I’ve helped build up I would have said you were nuts. Now, with the experience of dealing with my dad’s problems, I see an opportunity to help others in his situation avoid bankruptcy.”
The costs leading up to cleanup are often more devastating than the cleanup itself, Barnett said. “It costs $20,000 for this part of the discovery process, or $15,000 to find something else out, and after all that, the EPA may still say there’s no action required, but it cost you $35,000 to find out you don’t have to do anything,” she said.
Now, instead of teaching stain removal (as she has done in the past), she’ll be teaching about contamination-how it happens…how the laws affect cleaners…and how to pay for cleaning up contamination without breaking the bank. In Barnett’s case, a previous owner of the location has been found who is considered a potentially responsible party. “We’ll be pursuing all possible options and going after any insurance money we can get,” Barnett said.
Based on her experience, Barnett has this advice for other cleaners: “Take the time now to find your insurance information and lock it away someplace safe. Don’t wait until you want to sell the business or property.”
Though Barnett is no longer actively cleaning clothes in her community, her husband Chris continues to operate Finished Look Cleaners and Regal Cleaners in Indianapolis, a one-plant, two-drop store operation. Instead, she is helping the cleaning community deal with the horror of environmental contamination in a way that won’t clean cleaners out. Often a contaminated property sells for a fraction of its fair market value, but the value increases with a letter stating that a cleanup company is going to take care of the problem, she said.
“I want drycleaners to realize that groundwater contamination is likely as a result of normal historical operations of their business and that there is no shame in that,” Barnett said. “And I want to help them understand that remediating their properties now-rather than waiting-will enhance their investment in their business, making it more marketable when the time comes to sell. There are lots of options available with the right guidance so that insurance coverage pays for remediation and the restoration of value to their businesses.”
