Vapor Intrusion – A Concern, but an Easy Fix

Written by Stephen R. Henshaw, President and CEO of EnviroForensics & PolicyFind

As Seen in the January 2014 issue of the Cleaner & Launderer

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Those of you who have read my past articles, have heard me speak, or have ever looked at EnviroForensics’ website, know that we specialize in helping dry cleaners work through the regulatory and insurance maze of investigating and remediating soil and groundwater impacts caused by the release of percholoroethene (PCE).  The EnviroForensics team takes pride in helping to solve environmental problems for the dry cleaning industry; and over the past 18 years, we have helped more than 400 dry cleaners.

So much has changed since I started working with dry cleaners.  The laws and regulations enforced by the regulatory agencies, the cleanup technology, and the perceived human health exposure of vapors, known as vapor intrusion, are continually changing and evolving.   It seems that the only constants are that dry cleaners are targets and continue to be blamed when PCE is found in soil and groundwater. PCE is considered a risk to public health, contaminated soil and groundwater makes property transactions difficult to complete, and cleaning up PCE in soil and groundwater is expensive.  Oh, and old CGL insurance policies continue to be one of the saving graces for dry cleaners when faced with the daunting reality that they have been named as a party responsible for PCE contamination. Continue reading “Vapor Intrusion – A Concern, but an Easy Fix”