What makes cleaning up perc spills so expensive?

PERC IS ONE OF THE MORE EXPENSIVE CONTAMINANTS TO CLEAN UP. HERE’S WHY IT’S SO EXPENSIVE TO CLEAN UP AND WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT.

Blue drums filled with perc or perchloroethylene stacked on top of one another

Dry cleaners are keenly aware that the use of tetrachloroethene (PCE, known as Perc) in the textiles industry has become as heavily regulated as nearly any other industrial chemical to date. In fact, environmental concerns resulting from the current or past use of Perc are practically as common as those arising from old gasoline stations. Everyone has seen the vacant, seemingly valuable, corner lot that used to house a bustling gas station yet is now sitting in ruin. These old gas stations are known to have been the cause of environmental problems, and the high cost of the cleanup is often the reason why they go dormant for so long. Unfortunately, the amount of time and money that is required to investigate and ultimately clean up dry cleaner sites that have been impacted with Perc can be several times higher than at typical gas station sites. A common gas station site falls into the $350,000 range, and we have seen average closure costs for dry cleaner sites more in the $1 million to $1.25 million range. What makes Perc so much harder and more expensive to clean up than petroleum?

This article discusses a few of the complicating factors about Perc releases that make them so unique and so darn expensive.

1. PERC IS HEAVIER THAN WATER

Part of the reason that Perc releases are so challenging to investigate and cleanup is because of its chemical properties. PCE is over 60% heavier than water under normal conditions and sinks to the bottom while the groundwater floats on top. Likewise, when a release of Perc to the ground occurs and it reaches down to the groundwater table, it will continue to sink until it hits a layer of dense material, like clay.

Illustration of perc contamination sinking through the groundwater to the bedrock while the petroleum sits on top of the groundwater
An illustration of PCE contamination vs petroleum contamination.

It will sit there and continue to dissolve for a long time, which can cause a long groundwater contamination plume. The groundwater plume may also be very deep, depending on the geological conditions in your neighborhood. Big and deep means that more off-site properties are likely to be impacted as the plume grows. If multiple clay layers exist, there may be continuing sources of groundwater impacts.

FACT: PERC IS HEAVY AND CAN TRAVEL FAST AND FAR, WHICH CREATES LARGE PLUMES IN GROUNDWATER.

Petroleum products, including gasoline, diesel fuel, Stoddard solvent, and the like, are less dense than water. In contrast to Perc releases, once a petroleum spill reaches the groundwater table it floats on top of the groundwater and migrates horizontally. As a result, most petroleum releases are fairly shallow and comparatively simple to investigate and cleanup.

2. PCE IS RESISTANT TO NATURAL BREAKDOWN

There are naturally occurring microbes, bugs, in the subsurface that breakdown many organic compounds and materials. In the shallow zones, there is usually plenty of oxygen in the soils and groundwater, and oxygen-loving bugs thrive here. Some varieties of these bugs readily use petroleum contamination as a food source, which has the result of slowly reducing the amount of petroleum contamination over time. So, recall that most gas station and petroleum pollution is present in the shallower zones of the subsurface where there are plenty of these helpful, oxygen-loving bugs that eat petroleum, and voila; you have a cheap cleanup method. In fact, a common and cost-effective remediation strategy in these situations involves simply monitoring the effects until cleanup objectives are reached, which is called Monitored Natural Attenuation (MNA).

Conversely to petroleum releases, the type of bugs responsible for the biodegradation of Perc and other chlorinated solvents thrive in an environment without the presence of much oxygen (anaerobic conditions). The most common biological process that naturally occurring bugs use for breaking down Perc is called reductive dechlorination. In this process, the bugs cause hydrogen atoms present in the groundwater (H2O) to be substituted for chlorine (Cl) atoms in the Perc molecule.

Chemical structure of Perc or PCE degrading into TCE, cis-DCE, and finally VC
Follow the loss of chlorine (Cl) atoms through the degradation process.

That’s why it’s called dechlorination. Each time a chlorine atom is plucked off the parent Perc molecule; Perc, which has four chlorine atoms, is transformed to trichloroethene (TCE), which has three chlorine atoms, to dichloroethene (DCE), which has two, to vinyl chloride, which has one, and ultimately to ethene, which is basically a Perc compound with no chlorines at all. While Perc and all its other daughter products are considered toxic, ethene is non-toxic.

So, cleanup of Perc spills can be performed taking advantage of these naturally occurring bugs, but they aren’t really found in very common places. The conditions present in the subsurface need to be studied carefully and a remediation plan needs to be devised that takes advantage of this complicated, naturally occurring process to help achieve cleanup objectives where spills of Perc have occurred. Many times, naturally occurring conditions in the groundwater must be enhanced to take away the oxygen and we may even need to inject more of the right kind of bugs to speed up the reductive dechlorination process.

FACT: THE PERC DECHLORINATION PROCESSES ADDS SIGNIFICANT COST AND TIME TO REMEDIATION PROJECTS, AS COMPARED TO THE SIMPLE MONITORED NATURAL ATTENUATION OF A PETROLEUM PLUME.

3. PCE VAPORS ARE PERSISTENT AND MOBILE

Not only is Perc resistant to natural degradation, it also can remain in the soil as a vapor for a long period of time without breaking down. As all dry cleaners know, the volatile nature of Perc means that it will evaporate from a liquid to a vapor easily, which is one of the characteristics that make it such a good cleaning solvent. However, once PCE is released to the subsurface it also volatilizes as it disperses through the soil. If the vapors reached an occupied structure, like a house, and migrate into the indoor living space, vapor intrusion (VI) has occurred.

An illustration of perc soil vapors moving through the soil and into the basement of a home
An illustration of vapor intrusion.

VI concerns are at the top of most regulator’s list of concerns since Perc is considered a probable carcinogen. Just like we discussed above, the special kind of bugs needed to break down Perc don’t like oxygen, and the soil where the Perc vapors are is full of oxygen. Perc vapors don’t breakdown, and they can cause VI concerns for a long time. Since PCE vapors do not readily breakdown, they have been known to travel great distances  even from minor solvent spills. Many dry cleaners are located close to their customers in highly populated areas, and as a result the risk of VI occurring from a subsurface release is compounded.

FACT: THE VI EXPOSURE PATHWAY IS AN EXTREMELY COMPLICATED PROCESS, WHICH REQUIRES A SOPHISTICATED AND KNOWLEDGEABLE ENVIRONMENTAL PROFESSIONAL TO ADEQUATELY INVESTIGATE AND ADDRESS THE PATHWAY. BECAUSE OF THIS, COSTLY VI INVESTIGATIONS AND MITIGATION SYSTEMS COME WITH NEARLY EVERY DRY CLEANER SITE WHERE A RELEASE OF PERC HAS OCCURRED.

On the flip-side, VI issues occasionally happen with gas station sites, but it’s not all that common. The petroleum hydrocarbon compound Benzene is a major component of gasoline spills. It is also very volatile and is a known carcinogen, like Perc. The difference is that benzene vapors have been shown to naturally degrade in soils. As a result, the occurrence of VI concerns resulting from releases of petroleum products is limited, and the associated costs are not necessary at gas station sites as often as at dry cleaner sites.

These are only a few of the reasons that releases of PCE from neighborhood dry cleaners are commonly so much more expensive to address than those from the typical corner gas station.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

It’s crucial that owners and operators of dry cleaning operations that have historically used or presently use Perc be aware of all potential funding sources available to them, such as:

  • Historical insurance policies
  • Redevelopment cleanup grants
  • State Trust Funds

In those states that have dry cleaner remediation trust funds available for cleaning up dry cleaner sites, they are commonly stretched thin due to lack of funding, if eligibility is still available.

Historical insurance policies have proven to be the most powerful funding sources for dry cleaners across the country. Dry cleaner sites contaminated with Perc are complicated, expensive, and risky. Your best plan of action is to actually have a plan of action.

Contact us to get your action plan started.

As seen as Cleaner & Launderer


Headshot of Jeff CarnahanJeff Carnahan, LPG, has 20+ years of environmental consulting and remediation experience. His technical expertise focuses on the investigation and interpretation of subsurface releases of hazardous substances for the purpose of evaluating and controlling the risk and cost implications. He has focused on being a partner with the dry cleaning industry for the past decade, and he’s a frequent contributor to the national dry cleaning publication Cleaner & Launderer. He is an industry leader in understanding that environmental risk includes not only cleanup costs, but also known and unknown third-party liability.

How Clean is Clean Enough? Regulatory Closure vs. Environmental Remediation

HOW TO MAKE FINANCIALLY SOUND ENVIRONMENTAL CLEANUP DECISIONS

Squeegee washing dirty sky

BY: JEFF CARNAHAN

Many years ago, when I was a younger man just waiting for life to teach me the lessons I’d need, I had a brown, four-door 1976 Ford Maverick. This thing wasn’t pretty, and it certainly wasn’t cool, but it got me to school and to work, and occasionally it would deliver a brave girl and I to the movies on a Saturday night. I spent the time needed to change the oil and replace the filters, but for the most part I took for granted how important it was to me. One day on my way to somewhere, I heard an awful clunk and it just died. The first thought through my head was, “Oh no! How much is this going to cost me?” After a $50 tow to the shop and following several hours of waiting, the mechanic asked me this question, “Well son, do you want it to run, or do you want it fixed?”

I’m sure you can figure out the rest of the story. Since I was counting pennies at the time, I chose to have the minimum amount of work done to get my car running and back on the road immediately for the cheapest amount possible, rather than investing the time and money into getting it fixed correctly. I won’t bore you with the details but be assured that when that old Maverick died for good soon after, I was left high and dry with no transportation and wishing I’d have made a different decision a few months prior. That was an important lesson for me, and one that I keep with me.

TIP: FIX THINGS RIGHT, AND THE INVESTMENT WILL MORE THAN PAY FOR ITSELF.

I’d love to say that it only took that one incident for me to learn this lesson. It’s funny how life keeps giving you opportunities to learn.

Most of us have an example of how we’ve experienced this situation in the past, but when these types of decisions must be made in business it’s even trickier. In your experience, was it during a dry cleaning machine repair job or when fixing a leaky roof, or even as you tried to put yet another quick fix on that temperamental boiler? Environmental cleanups probably don’t come to mind for most folks, but the exact same thing applies for them. There are three components to dealing with an environmental contamination problem:

  1. Immediately halting any human exposure to chemicals that may be occurring;
  2. Cleaning up the contamination on-site and off-site; and
  3. Getting a Closure, or No Further Action, Letter from the state regulatory agency.

Once the necessary work has been conducted to stop human exposure, the question then becomes, “Now, do you want it clean, or do you just want a regulatory closure?” This may be putting the cart before the horse a little bit, but let’s leave the discussion about why immediately halting human exposure is top priority and non-negotiable for a later edition, and let’s focus on the interplay between cleaning up and getting regulatory closure.

WHAT DOES “CLEAN” MEAN IN AN ENVIRONMENTAL CLEANUP?

When performing an environmental cleanup, there is very little basis to involve the word “clean”. True clean never really occurs. There are only various levels of not quite, and at some point, it’s “clean enough”. In the world of environmental contamination there are numerous people setting the standard for when a property can be called “clean enough”. Most regulators worry mainly about two things beyond the current human exposure component:

  1. Ensuring that the contamination problem is getting better rather than worse
  2. Ensuring that there is no threat of future human or ecological exposure

Believe it or not, your property doesn’t have to be very clean at all for these boxes to be checked. Other parties who will be deciding if your property is clean enough are future purchasers and their financial lenders. They will not only be looking at whether you have a regulatory closure, but they will also be using the general environmental health of the property to help determine its practical value. This is a component that often gets overlooked when deciding how clean is “clean enough”. If the money isn’t spent during the first crack at environmental remedy, it could cost a significant amount of money later in the form of a lower property value when it’s time to sell, or a requirement for additional environmental work to be performed to even attract qualified purchasers.

TIP: THE TRICK IS TO STRIKE JUST THE RIGHT BALANCE BETWEEN SPENDING MONEY ON ACTIVE ENVIRONMENTAL CLEANUP, AND THE FUTURE COSTS THAT COULD ARISE. THIS WILL BE A LITTLE DIFFERENT FOR MOST EVERYONE FACING THESE DECISIONS, BUT THE FUNDAMENTAL THOUGHT PROCESS REMAINS THE SAME.

WHAT DOES REGULATORY CLOSURE MEANS FOR DRY CLEANERS?

Some state environmental regulators have very prescribed cleanup standards that have been put in place for regulated chemicals and are based upon certain human exposure scenarios given various land uses. For example, the cleanup standard for tetrachloroethene (PCE, or Perc) is much less stringent for properties which are and will remain commercial or industrial in nature, as opposed to used for residential purposes. This is because commercial property users spend much less time at the property than a residential user would and are engaging in activities that are much less likely to put them in contact with subsurface contamination than the residential user. So even when regulators strictly apply cleanup standards, their definition of clean is different for commercial and residential properties.

Other states allow for the person or business entity responsible for the contamination (Responsible Party, or RP) to decide how clean is clean enough by giving them the option to determine ongoing land usage more specifically with deed restrictions that limit the type of activities property owners and users can perform. A classic example is turning a contaminated property into a parking lot, and then putting in place a deed restriction or covenant that states that the property must always remain a parking lot, and it must be maintained that way, so no one can come into contact with the contamination. In this scenario, there is no need to perform much contaminant removal beyond what is necessary to keep it from spreading to other properties beyond the owner’s control. The presence of the well-maintained parking lot surface and the accompanying deed restrictions essentially remove the “risk” of human exposure. This type of regulatory closure is called a “Risk-Based Closure”. Many RPs initially love to employ such Risk-Based Closures because they are much cheaper initially than those remedies where a substantial amount of cleanup occurs. But keep in mind the little story about my old Ford Maverick. “Do you want it fixed, or do you just want it to run?” Well, do you want it clean, which restores your property to fair market value and provides you with a more robust set of reuse options, or do you just want a regulatory closure, which doesn’t restore your property to fair market value and limits future reuse options?

Settling for a pure Risk-Based Closure in lieu of a significant active cleanup can negatively impact the value of your property. I’m not saying complete elimination of environmental impacts is wise, or even possible. In fact, most of the time, it’s not even realistic to assume that every molecule of contamination can be removed from the soil, groundwater and soil gas after an environmental release. As such, nearly every remedy contains some component of a Risk-Based Cleanup. As I mentioned a bit earlier, the trick is finding the right balance that incorporates not only your wants and needs regarding post-closure usage of your property, but also takes into consideration your ability to shoulder the significant cost of active remedy.

BUSINESS AND PROPERTY OWNERS SHOULD WANT BOTH THE REGULATORY CLOSURE AND ENVIRONMENTAL CLEANUP

Environmental cleanup is a very costly endeavor, and it can heavily burden a business. Depending on how your business is set up, the liability for contamination could actually lie with you personally. Before you make that decision about how clean is clean enough, carefully consider all that you can afford. If you can swing it, the investment in a cleaner site will pay off in the future. Be sure to consider all your financial assets that can be used to pay for environmental cleanup.

TIP: REMEMBER THAT PAST COMMERCIAL GENERAL LIABILITY INSURANCE POLICIES CAN BE TRIGGERED TO PAY FOR ENVIRONMENTAL CLEANUP. ESPECIALLY SINCE MOST ENVIRONMENTAL RELEASES ALSO OCCURRED IN THE PAST.

By levering as much cleanup power and by choosing the best cleanup option, you can add value back to your contaminated property for future reimbursement. I wish the decision I made back with my Ford Maverick had been, “I want it to run, and I want it fixed.” As is the case for many dry cleaners, you’ll be better off if you get a regulatory closure and a cleanup.

Contact us to discuss leveraging environmental cleanup to restore property value.

As seen in Cleaner & Launderer


Jeff Carnahan, President at EnviroForensics
Jeff Carnahan, LPG, has 20+ years of environmental consulting and remediation experience. His technical expertise focuses on the investigation and interpretation of subsurface releases of hazardous substances for the purpose of evaluating and controlling the risk and cost implications. He has focused on being a partner with the drycleaning industry for the past decade, and he’s a frequent contributor to the national drycleaning publication Cleaner & Launderer. He is an industry leader in understanding that environmental risk includes not only cleanup costs, but also known and unknown third-party liability. 

LISTEN: Henshaw Talks about Thermal Remediation, Revitalization, and Reuse on NPR

EnviroForensics CEO, Steve Henshaw, PG, spoke with Chris Nolte, the host of Lakeshore Public Media’s talk show, Regionally Speaking, to discuss the success of thermal remediation technology used at the former Family Pride Dry Cleaner and Laundry in Crown Point. They also talked about the property’s future, now that it’s back on the market and ready for productive use.


Check out the interview to learn more.


This interview has been edited for clarity.

Chris Nolte: Well first, for folks who may not remember our last conversation, tell us what EnviroForensics does and how important it is in particular to the project you guys just finished up in Crown Point.

Steve Henshaw: Sure. Thank you so much. EnviroForensics has been in business for over 20 years and we are a full-service environmental engineering firm. We investigate environmentally contaminated sites, and we design and implement the remediation. We get properties through the regulatory process – and get them back in productive hands to develop, reuse and get back on the tax roll.

What’s unique about EnviroForensics is we have the ability to go back and find old insurance policies that were really written for normal slip and falls; these normal slip and fall Commercial General Liability (CGL) policies can be used to pay for the expensive cost of environmental cleanup and investigation. And, that’s what really sets us apart from the competition; we can go and find the money to pay for these cleanups, which can routinely be a million and a half dollars at a normal dry cleaner.

Learn more about CGL policies

 
Nolte: Tell us about this project, which we see here used to be known as the Family Pride Laundry, located on North Main Street in Crown Point. Many people drive by it, even now every day as they’re traveling north and south into and out of downtown Crown Point. This business has been closed for a number of years and I guess it’s been up for sale for some time but it’s not had much luck in finding a new owner because all of its past baggage, so to speak. Tell us what you folks managed to clean up out of that facility to be able to reopen it up again and make it “redevelop-able”.

Henshaw: This was a site that was brought to us through the banks that the previous owner was working with. In many situations, when a business pays a loan to buy equipment and operate they commonly put up the property as a secured asset, and, in the business of environmentally contaminated piece of property, the bank may not realize what the business had as their secured asset. This is because when the business was no longer able to perform on the loan then the bank considered foreclosing on the property, but the bank doesn’t want to be the owner of a contaminated property.

Nolte: Well, yeah.

Henshaw: The bank brought us in and we were able to find a buyer for the note and then pursue the old insurance policy. It’s taken a little bit of time to work out those details, but once we got it all taken care of with the bank and the note was in new hands; we continued to pursue the insurance carrier. Then we investigated the dry cleaning site to determine the extent of the contamination and brought in a unique process of using thermal remediation, which heats up the soil and the groundwater, to fry off the volatile organics that are in the soil and groundwater. Old dry cleaners used chemical solvents, which are carcinogenic, to take creases out of fabrics and the solvents are heavier than water so they fall through the water columns. Really this is just a normal and routine part of the business, but these solvents can enter sewers or cracks in the floors through spills and unfortunately a little bit goes a long way. Many dry cleaners experience this environmental contamination, but in this situation, we brought in and employed a thermal remediation technology that worked with NIPSCO to bring in a high-voltage power line and heated the soil and the groundwater to near boiling. We implemented this in late May 2018 and shut the system down in early September 2018 and we had 99% removal of the contamination in just four months. So that’s what really makes this site unique. These are sites that can go on five, 10, 15 years and then the residual amounts of contamination that are still in groundwater and soil are still at levels that will require long-term monitoring of potentially 15 more years–just to monitor and make sure that the contaminants aren’t migrating off-site. But in this particular situation, we were able to get 99% of the contamination out of the soil and the groundwater in about 90 to 120 days.

Building with cleanup equipment inside fence
Thermal remediation technology reduced contamination by 99% in just four months.

Nolte: Now, Steve, I understand that in this particular site, what used to be the Family Pride Laundry, there on Main street in Crown Point had what they call perc, short for perchloroethylene, which is a solvent that was used commonly in dry cleaning. So, a person takes their clothes in to get the spots taken out; at this point Family Pride was still in business and they’d use the perc in their machines, so what a lot of this was, I’d imagine, were just maybe accidental spills of perc, but somehow or another that didn’t raise concerns, and it still got into the groundwater, didn’t it?

Henshaw: Yes, that’s correct. And the older machines didn’t have the same recycling capabilities, so often times, the perc was transferred to a distillation still to boil down the perc, so it comes overhead, it’s clean again and it gets reused. That’s just the process of recycling. Then you would also have these overfills and spills in the boiler system. You would have inadvertent doors popping open with this solvent. You would have just small releases, but over time, they accumulate into a large enough problem that the state and the regulatory agency gets concerned about the carcinogenic aspects in the soil and the groundwater.

Nolte: This place opened up as a dry cleaner and laundry in 1961, I think if my info’s right, and was open until 2012 when the business finally closed up there, which means that site has been unusable pretty much since then. That is until you folks from EnviroForensics managed to help get the process going and get the cleanup started and finished. How do people feel now that the cleanup is down to 99% clean? You can’t get much cleaner than that short of just pure soil.

Henshaw: Right. Well, we do have some interested parties that are knocking on the doors and would like to use the property. It’s been a bit of an eyesore for some time. So we’re excited about being able to put that back into productive use. That’s the name of the game here; try to get the cleanup done quickly and get the property back on the tax roll.

Nolte: Now for folks that may not be aware what you folks have done. I know this is not the first project you’ve worked on in Lake County or Northwest Indiana. You’ve worked on a number of them before. And some rather environmentally dirty areas, too, I understand.

Henshaw: Mhmm, yes. The dry cleaning industry has been something we’ve been closely involved with, but it’s not exclusive to that. EnviroForensics was involved with the East Chicago Waterway Canal project, the Gary Airport, the sanitary, the old Ralston Street Lagoon to receive wastewater from the sanitary POTW. So, we have been involved in rather large-scale projects, as well, but the interesting thing is these small dry cleaners cause just as much environmental impact as some of these larger manufacturing sites. It sort of goes against the grain of what you might think, but these small dry cleaners, these releases of perchloroethylene, can be upwards of a million and a half to two million dollar cleanups–so they’re really expensive–and, of course, the real problem here is that these small mom and pops just have no way of paying for those cleanups. If it wasn’t for our ability to go back and find old insurance policies that can pay for these expensive cleanups then those sites would end up being orphan sites, that the EPA might have to take over, which means it would be on the taxpayers to eventually clean up.

Image of Downtown Crown Point, Indiana.
Image of Downtown Crown Point, Indiana.

Nolte: That would be a tough place to do a Brownfield project with the EPA because that’s right smack in a residential and a commercial area of Crown Point. Can you fill us in on any other related projects that you and your folks at EnviroForensics are working on now?

Henshaw: Well, we’re now embarking on a number of projects in the area. There are some abandoned sites within Hammond and we’re working with the City of Hammond to restore a couple of those old, abandoned sites there. Probably can’t release their names at this point, but there’s still a number of manufacturing sites that EnviroForensics has been asked to come out and take a look at to see if we can use our unique approach of finding those old insurance policies. We have an insurance archeology division that goes all over the country looking for and finding old insurance policies. These policies, again, are not written for cleaning up contamination. They were written as normal slip and fall policies; normal CGL policies, but because they didn’t have exclusions for pollution, they are able to be used to address environmental contamination, asbestos exposure, and other claims that might come about. So that is something we are active in all across the country, and certainly in Northwest Indiana.

Nolte: Well, Steve. Thank you very much for bringing us up to date here on a pending closure with no doubt soon-to-be new owners of the site that used to be so contaminated it had to close up–until you folks with EnviroForensics were able to get in there, and get the cleanup not only done but also make it available for somebody to be able to take on as a new property someday. Thank you for being with us to talk about it.

Contact us today to restore value to contaminated properties.