Since I’m on their mailing list, I’m accustomed to seeing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announce crackdowns on big corporate polluters, multimillion dollar fines and monumental toxic cleanups. That’s why it piqued Whistleblower’s interest to read Thursday’s news release. EPA’s Region 5, the Chicago office that covers six Midwestern states, announced that after discovering a violation of the Clean Air Act, it had reached an “administrative consent order” with the violator - Pfeffer’s Cleaners of White Bear Lake.

Pfeffer’s Cleaners?

Now Whistleblower knows that the principal chemical used in dry-cleaning, perchloroethylene or “perc,” takes the dirt out of clothes, but it’s tough on the earth and creatures that live on it. It’s dangerous to breathe, it’s a suspected carcinogen and it can contaminate water, says Nathan Frank, an environmental scientist with the EPA in Chicago. So the EPA has been tightening the rules on the handling of perc for 20 years.

For years, dry cleaners have used “transfer” machines - essentially side-by-side washers and dryers. The trouble is, when the perc-saturated items are taken out of the “wet” washer, the chemical tends to escape into the air, posing a risk to those who inhale it and wherever it settles. The EPA banned new transfer machines in 1993, but grandfathered the existing ones. In 2006, based on additional information about the risks of perc, the EPA told dry cleaners nationwide that they needed to shut down their remaining transfer machines by July 2008.

Most of them did, replacing them with “dry-dry” machines that didn’t expose the perc-laden clothes to the air. Or they went out of business. Pfeffer’s Cleaners, however, kept using its old machine. As far as Frank knows, it’s the only one still operating in his entire Midwest region. A health inspector from Ramsey County visited the business and notified the EPA that the outlawed transfer machine was still cleaning clothes.

Whistleblower reached Pfeffer’s owner, Douglas Pfeffer, at work in White Bear Lake last week. He didn’t deny that he flouted the EPA. But he says he’s no polluter. Indeed, unlike many dry cleaners, he doesn’t have a history of wrangles with the government over spilled chemicals or contaminated land.

“I’ve been in the business for 48 years. The kind of machine that has been used forever,” Pfeffer told me. “A few years ago, they came out with a ‘dry-to-dry unit.’ Only problem is, those machines are about $50,000. I’m 65 years old. Why at my age would I want to buy this kind of machine?”

Still, under the threat of daily $37,500 fines from the EPA, Pfeffer said he shut down the transfer unit for good in “May or June.” That’s not good enough for the EPA, though. Under the consent order, Pfeffer has to “dismantle and permanently remove” the machine by Sept. 1 and by Oct. 1, submit proof to EPA that the machine has been turned into scrap.

Pfeffer had hoped to wind down into retirement, but now he finds himself sending customers’ clothing to another cleaners. “It’s a good possibility that [the EPA is] going to end up closing me down,” he said.

Frank said dry cleaners had plenty of notice, and eligibility for low-interest loans, to switch to less-polluting equipment. Yet it seems inevitable that tighter environmental regulation takes a disproportionate toll on mom-and-pop businesses, whether they be gas stations coping with underground storage tank rules, family farmers facing restrictions on manure handling or dry cleaners told to send their old washers to the junkyard.

“We think that there are cost effective alternatives available to the industry,” Frank said about the dry cleaning rules. “We hope that they won’t put people out of business.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 21st, 2009 at 10:54 am and is filed under Businesses in hot water. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.