#enviroforensics

Can you afford not to go green?

Written by Steve Henshaw, President and CEO of EnviroForensics in collaboration with John Soderberg, PE, Esq. As seen in the September 2012 issue of the Cleaner and Launderer.

Nowadays everyone in business wants to be considered environmentally “friendly” or “green.” The retail dry cleaning industry is no exception.  In fact, given the ecological concern over perchloroethylene or “PERC”, actual or perceived, the retail dry cleaning trade has been at the forefront of the green movement.  However, there is another aspect of an environmentally friendly operation that most cleaners do not recognize, namely, that reducing consumption reduces costs.

The primary reason the trade participates in environmental conservation is because it is part of being a good corporate citizen.  Hence, most retail cleaners are only remotely aware of the potentially positive economic impact “going green” may have, independent of its positive public relations impact.  The purpose of this article is to explore that aspect as well as provide a simple method of prioritizing potentially available “environmentally friendly” or “going green” activities.

Going Green

At the outset, it is necessary to first define the term “going green.”  To “go green” means to reduce, either directly or indirectly, the amount of energy and other environmental resources consumed.  An important aspect of this reduction effort is often described as reducing the “carbon footprint.”   The term “carbon footprint” refers to the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) we emit individually in any given period.

CO2 is produced from many sources and is one of the primary gases responsible for global warming.  In fact, it is a major component of what we exhale every time we exhale!  It is produced in much greater quantities by burning, coal, oil, or gas to propel a car or truck, produce electricity, or produce heat and hot water.  It is an integral, albeit often overlooked, part of our everyday lives.  The mitigation of carbon footprints through solar, wind energy, or less fuel usage by utilizing more efficient fuel combustion or better insulation is one way of reducing a carbon footprint and is often known as carbon offsetting.

One can “go green” indirectly and directly.  It can be done indirectly by purchasing recycled products and recycling in general. The less new materials used, the less energy required to produce them and the less carbon-based fuel consumed.  It is done directly, by consuming less water and employing more efficient energy consumption devices.

As an individual consumer, whether by lowering your thermostat or unplugging seldom-used appliances, chances are you have already scaled scale back on energy use.  You are probably also one of the many consumers who have Energy Star-qualifying products.  Last year, one in three people reported using the label as part of a purchase decision.  According to the Department of Energy, if you bought an Energy Star-qualified commercial dishwasher, you saved an estimated $200 per year. Those who took home an Energy Star refrigerator can look forward to a 15% less expensive monthly electricity bill. Isn’t it high time you evaluate whether or not, as a business, you should be doing this as well.

The Profit Aspect of Going Green

Profit equals total income less total cost.  Hence, there are two basic ways to increase profits. First, is to increase prices and the second is to reduce costs.

This latter aspect is where “Green meet$ Green”.  Obviously, the more efficient a gas or oil burner, the better insulated a building and the less water used, all relate to lower utility bills.  The lower the bills, the lower the costs and the higher profits become.

First, there are no-cost steps one may take immediately to reduce resource consumption. Purchasing new lavatory facilities solely to reduce water consumption may not be a cost-effective step.  However, simply putting a brick in the toilet tank to reduce annual water usage is an easy, highly effective, and uncomplicated step that can result in a significantly lower water bills.  Similarly, posting a “don’t forget to turn off the lights” sticker conspicuously above light switches can also have a significant impact at virtually no effort or expense.  Some of you probably remember that during the Carter Administration we were inundated with public service announcements to turn down our thermostats during the winter, to wear a sweater and to turn off the lights.   Today, we have to constantly remind our kids to do just that.

There are also other, relatively inexpensive steps such as using recyclable hangers and poly bags, and reusable garment and laundry bags, that can go a long way toward not only carbon footprint reduction but also in increasing profit both directly as well by producing a more positive public perception.  Another often over looked and cost-free option is the no-cost energy assessments offered by many local gas and/or electric utility companies.

Next, is the “simple payback” concept.  This comes into play when the need to replace a piece of equipment arises.  Often two or more replacement choices are available. One choice is classically less expensive than the other. However, the more costly option is often more energy efficient. When deciding which option to choose you will be aided in many instances by the Energy Efficiency Ratio or EER for electrical appliances.  If such companies are not offering you a choice, it may be because they are trying to get rid of their stock of old, less energy efficient equipment.

For example, an air conditioner has an energy efficiency rating that lists how many BTU’s per hour are used for each Watt of power it draws. For room air conditioners, this rating is the Energy Efficiency Ratio, or EER. These ratings are posted on an Energy Guide Label, which must be attached on a visible place on all new air conditioners.

Once you ascertain your average electrical usage cost in dollars per kilowatt, which is readily available from your electric bill (or, if not, by simply calling and asking your local utility) a payback comparison between two comparable appliances such as air conditioners you are ready to begin. First estimate the number of hours you plan to use the air conditioner over the year.  By multiplying the hours of usage per year by the air conditioner’s BTU per hour rating on its face plate you will obtain the BTU per year required to run the unit.

Next, divide the BTU per year by the EER, and multiply that by the electrical cost per watt. Dividing this by 1,000 provides the cost per kilowatt.  This figure is the yearly cost to operate the unit. Dividing each of the two unit costs by their respective annual energy costs, yields their respective paybacks.

This procedure can be used to not only select between two or more similar products, but also to prioritize replacement of different initiatives.  For example, let us compare the need for new insulation with that for a new water heater. Both are deemed necessary but not immediately so. The task is to choose the more cost effective action first.

Assume that the insulation will require a total capital outlay of $5,000 and, after application will result in a $500 a year energy bill.  It has a payback of $5,000 / $500 per year.  Put another way, the improvement will pay for itself in 10 years at the current utility rate.  In contrast, a new water heater will cost $2,400 and result in a $120 energy costs.  This results in a payback of $2,400 / $120 per year, a payback of 20 years.  Clearly, the insulation replacement should be accomplished first if at all possible.

Summary and Conclusions

Obviously, in these economic times being green is desirable from a customer relations standpoint. However, it can also mean a more profitable operation by reducing costs.  The key to successful economic “green” is payback.  The shorter the payback period is the better choice.  Utilizing simple arithmetic, the guesswork can be eliminated from the decision of what to purchase first.

We have experience and knowledge to assist you in your green evaluations.  Please feel to contact us for help.

1 Mr. Soderberg is both an environmental attorney and environmental engineer with over 36 years experience in the environmental field.  Mr. Soderberg represents corporations, businesses and individuals before federal, state and local environmental regulatory agencies, as well as federal and state courts. He is a committee member of the nationally-based Green Cleaners Council.

With 30+ years of experience, Mr. Henshaw holds professional geology registrations in numerous states. As President and CEO of EnviroForensics, Mr. Henshaw serves as a client and technical manager on projects associated with site characterization, remedial design, remedial implementation and operation, litigation support and insurance coverage matters. He has acted as Project Manager or Client Manager on several hundred projects, involving dry cleaners, manufacturers, landfills, refineries, foundries, metal plating shops, food processors, wood treating facilities, chemical blenders, and transportation facilities.

Mr. Henshaw has built a leading edge environmental engineering company that specializes in finding the funding to pay for environmental liabilities.  By combining responsible party searches with insurance archeology investigations, EnviroForensics has been successful at remediating and closing sites for property owners and small business owners across the country, with minimal capital outlay from clients.

He is a regular contributing writer for several dry cleaning trade publications on environmental and regulatory issues and remains active with dry cleaning associations by providing insight on changes in law and policy

For years parties responsible for the costs associated with environmental investigations and cleanups of Perc contamination have been trying to determine when Perc releases have occurred.  This topic has important ramifications when sites have had a series of dry cleaning operations over time, when different insurance carriers insured dry cleaners and property owners, and when several dry cleaning releases have comingled together from different dry cleaning locations.

So, for the past 15 to 20 years, scientists like Dr. Konrad Banaszak with EnviroForensics, have been trying to figure out how to age date PERC releases.  So, can Perc releases be accurately age dated?  The answer is yes, no and maybe. 

One of the ways to determine a relative age of a release is by evaluating the breakdown products of Perc (trichloroethene, dichloroethene, and vinyl chloride).  Generally speaking, groundwater that contains higher concentrations of vinyl chloride is typically associated with an older release of Perc.  However, there are limitations in that the ambient water quality has a direct effect on the breakdown time.  For example, Perc generally breaks down more rapidly in an anerobic groundwater environment, one that is starved for oxygen.  Conversely, Perc released into an aerobic groundwater environment would generally break down very slowly. Therefore, using the ratio of breakdown products to Perc is not singularly a reliable method for estimating the age of the Perc release.                                                                         

Another approach is to determine the horizontal extent of the contaminated groundwater plume.  In general, the groundwater velocity multiplied by time equals the distance traveled (R*T=D).  Hydrogeologists can determine the groundwater velocity and the distance the impacted groundwater has migrated from the source area and may be able to provide a release time.  Additional information is required to more accurately determine the time of travel in that the higher the organic content of the aquifer, the more the volatile organics like Perc are retarded or slowed from migration. 

The above scenarios can be difficult to provide accurate estimates, although hydrogeologists and scientists can develop reasonable estimates.  A more complicated scenario is when one is trying to determine the age of a Perc release when it has commingled with another release.  Scenarios include different releases at the same location over different times periods or different releases from different dry cleaning establishments.  The later is common in large regional contamination studies.

In situations where commingled plumes exist, scientists more likely than not would rely on evaluating different isotopes of Perc.  To understand this approach, the scientist must have information on the original product that the dry cleaner used over specific time periods.  Different manufacturers of Perc had unique product formulas from their competitors and recycled Perc would have a very different formula from virgin Perc.  Therefore, different isotopes become the focus of the study.

Isotopes may be an idea that you have long forgotten.  The idea of isotopes is simple enough in that different atoms of the same element can have different masses.  There is an entire field called isotopic geochronology that focuses on age dating rocks, fossils, even cloth, such as shrouds found in ancient tombs.  A common technique for age dating younger objects (younger than about 60,000 years old) use carbon.  Carbon has an isotope, atomic mass 14 or carbon 14 that is radioactive and decays. 

To illustrate this in age dating a perc release the following is assumed; a Perc molecule has two carbon atoms and four chlorine atoms.  There are 5 different molecules of perc by mass.  The two carbons have a mass of 24.  Carbon practically speaking has only one isotope, but chlorine has two common isotopes (35 and 37).  The resulting Perc molecule may weigh 164 (all four chlorines being 35), 166, 168, 170, or 172 (all four chlorines being 37) units.

By quantifying the various molecules of Perc in groundwater samples, we can in some cases distinguish Perc by its source.  This may be useful in establishing which sources contributed how much contamination to a plume that is composed of several sources.  It may also be useful in age dating a Perc release. 

In the case of a commingled plume, the isotopic “fingerprint” of each source needs to be established.  In theory this is not too difficult and would require just a couple of samples in the source area and at the leading edge of the plume.  However, age dating a plume is more complex.  A precondition is that we know the isotopic fingerprint of the Perc product that was used at a given time and location versus the isotopic fingerprint of the Perc product used at a later time and location.  If one is trying to establish the age of a release at the same site, we need to know the date when the Perc products that were used switched from one to another.  If that information can be substantiated, we may be able to differentiate the isotopic fingerprint near the source area from that at the leading edge of the plume.  Further work would then be required to discover where the change occurs within the plume.  By coupling an understanding of groundwater flow velocity and of the change in the isotopic signature in the plume, one could probably determine the age of the release. 

The cost to evaluate the isotopic signature of the Perc in groundwater samples is relatively inexpensive, approximately $350 per sample.  Obtaining the soil or groundwater samples, conducting the investigative research to determine what Perc products were used would be additional.

You worked hard to grow your business and you had the good fortune to sell it for a profit.  You had your lawyer look over the sale contract and you even had the buyer indemnify you for future environmental claims, should they ever arise.  You did everything right and now it’s time to relax and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Several years pass and one day you get a letter in the mail.  The letter is sent “certified” and you have to sign for it.  You open the letter, it’s from the state environmental regulatory department informing you that as a past owner and/or operator of the sold business, you are responsible for groundwater contamination.

While I don’t want to come off as an alarmist and be the bearer of bad news, I feel an obligation to tell my readers the truth.  The truth is, that if you owned or operated a dry cleaner that used solvents and those solvents are found in soil or groundwater you are, more likely than not, legally liable for investigating and remediating the contamination.

I’ve seen this happen more times than I care to remember.  I’ve seen situations where Perc shows up in a municipal well and the regulators research old city directories and old telephone books to find all of the past dry cleaners that operated in the area of the well.  I’ve seen landlords and neighboring property owners find Perc in soil and groundwater when they were conducting due diligence activities during property refinancing and transaction activities.  I’ve seen Perc discovered in soil and groundwater when streets are widened or new utility lines are installed.  I’ve seen insurance companies look for old owners and operators in an effort to have those former parties contribute toward the cleanup that the carriers have been paying on.  All of these situations have one thing in common; the former dry cleaners are brought in to pay for or share in the cost of the environmental cleanup activities.

We talk often to dry cleaners about being proactive. Many times those same dry cleaners have responded that they do not own the property so they believe the potential problem is not theirs. Or their rebuttal is that they ran a clean operation so they are not concerned. They believe the blame will fall on the previous operator, but we have to tell them that the problems related to Perc contamination will not go away.

While you can’t foresee the future and you can’t go along every day worrying about the threat of a lawsuit or cleanup demand, you can do some things to provide some protection against such demands.  How you have your business structured is one important issue.  Do you own the business personally or is it held as a company where your personal assets can be protected?  Did you buy the assets of a company or did you buy the business itself, including the stock?  If you bought the company and not just the assets, you likely also own the historical insurance policies of the purchased entity and that can be worth millions of dollars down the road.  When you sold the business did you get an indemnification agreement from the buyer?  While an indemnity agreement may not matter to a regulator looking for responsible parties, indemnities are still worth having in a sales contract.

Another area that can provide you with protection against future cleanup demands are your old records.  You want to locate and keep old records that show you ran a good operation and that you followed the regulations.  Will your old inspection records, maintenance logs and monitoring reports support your position that you ran a clean operation?  If the answer is yes, then those records should be copied or scanned and stored in a safe, dry place.  You also want records that show who you bought your equipment and solvent from and how much you purchased.  You want records that show who disposed of your waste solvent and filters.  You want to hold onto your old equipment manuals for the dry cleaning machine, distillation columns, misters and filtration systems.  Write on the manual the years that the specific equipment was used.  You want to keep a copy of your sale contract and you want to find as much information as possible regarding the people that sold you the business.  Try to keep records that include the sellers name(s) and social security numbers in the event that you need to find them years down the road. 

Find, locate and securely store copies of your old insurance policies or any evidence that documents who your carrier was during given years.  Old insurance policies can be worth millions of dollars years from now.  If you can’t find your old policies, look through your old accounting ledgers and check books for information about your insurance.  Keep any document that pertains to your old insurance, whether it’s a certificate of insurance, and old payment stub, cancelled checks, accounting ledgers, check books, and any correspondence from the carriers. If you can’t find your old insurance, research what you can.  Don’t be shy, call your old broker, the one you left five years ago and haven’t spoken to and ask for copies of your old policies or documentation regarding the name of the insurance company, the years of coverage, the type of policy, the policy limits and the policy number.  The policy number is very important.  If he does not have records, but recalls the name of the carriers and coverage periods ask him to put that information in a letter for you. 

If you know the person you bought the business from, ask him if he has old policies or evidence of coverage.  Go through the same steps just discussed in an effort to locate that information.  I’ll say it again, old insurance records could be worth millions of dollars to you.

While I understand that the IRS only requires you to keep records for 7 years, some records are worth keeping for good.  Old insurance policies and records should always be saved.  When it comes to protecting yourself from unforeseen future liabilities, more often than not, there are golden nuggets buried in your old records.

On Friday, February 10, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published the final health assessment for perchloroethylene (Perc) to the EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) database.  EPA’s IRIS is a human health assessment program that evaluates risk information on effects that may result from exposure to environmental contaminants.   Perc is a chemical solvent widely used in the dry cleaning industry.  This health assessment appears to confirm longstanding scientific understanding and research, that Perc is a “likely human carcinogen.”  For the first time, the EPA provides estimates for both cancer and non-cancer effects associated with exposure to Perc over a lifetime.

It’s important to note that the EPA does not believe that wearing clothes dry cleaned with perc will result in exposures which pose a risk of concern.  EPA has already taken several significant actions to reduce exposure to Perc. EPA has clean air standards for dry cleaners that use Perc, including requirements that will phase-out the use of Perc by dry cleaners in residential buildings by December 21, 2020. EPA also set limits for the amount of Perc allowed in drinking water and levels for cleaning up Perc at Superfund sites throughout the country, which will be updated in light of the IRIS assessment.

“The Perc health assessment will provide valuable information to help protect people and communities from exposure to Perc in soil, water and air,” said Paul Anastas, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Research and Development. “This assessment emphasizes the value of the IRIS database in providing strong science to support government officials as they make decisions to protect the health of the American people.”

According to the EPA IRIS assessment, the assessment has undergone several levels of rigorous, independent peer review including: agency review, interagency review, public comment, and external peer review by the National Research Council. All major review comments have been addressed.

The assessment replaces the 1988 IRIS assessment for Perc.  The most significant change from the 1988 IRIS assessment appears to be the reference dose (RfD) for Perc.  The RfD is an estimate of a daily oral exposure to the human population (including sensitive subgroups) that is likely to be without an appreciable risk of deleterious effects during a lifetime.  The RfD of 0.006 milligrams/kilograms per day (mg/kg-day) replaces the previous RfD of 0.01 mg/kg-day entered on the IRIS database on 03/01/1988. 

The EPA will use these revised toxicity values reported to establish cleanup levels at the hundreds of Superfund sites where Perc is a contaminant; to revise the EPA’s Maximum Contaminant Level for Perc as part of the carcinogenic volatile organic compounds group in drinking water, as described in the agency’s drinking water strategy; and to Evaluate whether to propose additional limits on the emissions of Perc into the atmosphere.

If you’ve ever had to hire an environmental consultant to investigate your property and collect samples, you’ve probably had to look at an analytical report from a laboratory and use it to answer some pretty important questions.  Is there contamination on my property? What chemicals are present? How much is there?  Most importantly, are the levels of contamination high enough to be causing harmful health effects?Only slightly less importantly, are they high enough to require a costly cleanup?  You needed to know the answers to all of these questions so that you could sell or buy a property, get a business loan, or maybe just to sleep at night.  With today’s trend of highly regulated vapor intrusion (VI) assessments being required at sites where dry cleaning with perchloroethene (PCE) has taken place, these questions have become increasingly important and more difficult to answer.

While there are challenges associated with environmental assessments of all kinds; determining the level of hazardous constituents in a building’s indoor air, assessing from where it may have come and evaluating if an unacceptable health risk exists for human occupants can be particularly delicate.  For those property owners who need answers to the questions posed in the situation above, it is extremely important that samples of indoor air collected during VI assessments are representative of the air actually being breathed by the building’s occupants and that the laboratory results can be relied upon. 

Location

To design a good indoor air sampling plan, it is very important to understand the way in which airborne contaminants are dispersed and move about within a building’s spaces.  Given a single source of indoor air contamination, such as a crack in a concrete floor that allows in impacted subsurface vapors, the concentration of the contaminant will slowly disperse over time throughout the entire indoor space.  Think of how when a teabag is introduced into a cup of hot water there is initially a concentrated area of tea nearest the teabag itself (the source), which eventually spreads throughout the entire cup.  Contaminants spread throughout indoor air in a similar fashion. 

With this in mind, it makes sense that the concentration of indoor air contaminants should be highest closest to the source, which should be fairly straightforward to identify.  That is true in a very few situations.  But in most other cases, interior walls, closed interior doors, open exterior doors and windows, and many other factors affect the dispersion process.  As a result, one or two indoor air samples collected from within a building may not yield very useful information if you’re not careful.  The placement of sampling locations has the ability to make or break an indoor air sampling event conducted as part of a VI assessment. 

Background

Prior to the initiation of indoor air sampling, an inspection of the area must be conducted to identify and inventory materials that could potentially contribute to indoor air conditions that may be unrelated to VI issues.  Many common items such as commercially available cleaners and degreasers; small quantities of small engine fuel; furniture polish; cigarette smoke; building materials such as cured floor sealants, carpeting, glued furniture, paint lacquers; and, household products such as disinfecting materials, cosmetics, hobby products, etc. can affect the quality of indoor air in buildings.  Suspect items identified during the inspections should be listed on a pre-sampling inspection form for later reference and a request must be made for their removal prior to sampling.

Many of the chemicals of concern being evaluated during VI assessments are also already present in outdoor ambient air as a result of urbanization or industry.  Recent studies by the EPA have shown that some chemicals, such as PCE and Benzene, are present in the ambient outdoor air in urban areas at concentrations that are higher than the human health screening levels for residential scenarios.  When the outdoor air carrying these chemicals migrates into buildings where VI assessments are underway, the resulting data can be affected.  Without a thorough assessment of background conditions, data collected during indoor air sampling events can become useless. 

Maintain Control

Indoor air samples are typically taken over an extended period of time to provide a time-weighted average concentration for comparison with screening levels.  Samples collected within residential structures usually are taken over a 24-hour period to represent continuous occupation.  Samples collected within commercial or industrial facilities are taken over an 8-hour period to mimic the standard work day.  When the sampling devices are placed and sample collection begins, the environmental professional usually sticks around for a short period of time and collects a few additional readings, but there is a large amount of time during normal sampling events where there is no control over what goes on around the sampling device. 

Happenings could occur during the course of 24-hours that may impact indoor air sampling results.  For example, if someone opens a window to let in some fresh air for an extended period of time, the results would likely be artificially biased too low for good use in a VI assessment.  Although the sample results would accurately represent true conditions during the time of sampling, it would not represent worst-case conditions that exist when all windows are closed.  If someone brings home their dry-cleaned clothes and places them in the same room as an indoor air sampling device, the concentration of the dry-cleaning solvent used would be higher than anticipated.  The health based screening levels for chemicals such as PCE are extremely low and it doesn’t take much to affect the analytical results at these trace concentrations. 

Controlling conditions during indoor air sampling events is a sensitive matter since it usually involves limiting the behavior of building or house owners and occupants who are probably already feeling a bit put out.  A pragmatic approach is necessary, however, to get an accurate assessment of indoor air conditions during VI investigations. 

There is a significant amount of time and money required to collect and analyze indoor air samples at and near environmental cleanup sites.  Since the regulatory requirements to do so are still fairly new there are many inexperienced people performing these assessments.  Before you hire someone to help you understand the potential VI exposure pathway at your cleanup site, or your building that is located near a cleanup site, make sure that your money will be well spent.