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Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Environment - Bloomington Cleaners undertakes voluntary environmental cleanup; shovel-ready sites
From a June 13th story ($$) by Mercedes Rodriguez in the Bloomington Herald-Times
About 120 tons of soil were removed from the site of Bloomington Cleaners, a dry cleaning business owned by Steve Arthur, during the week of June 30.Shovel-Ready Sites. Of somewhat related interest is this July 12th article by the Louisville Courier Journal's reporter Lesley Stedman Weidenbener detailing what exactly is a "shovel-ready site."Arthur says though he entered the cleaning business in 1992, his building had housed dry cleaners for more than 35 years. Equipment used in the past was more prone to leaks and spills. It was time to clean up, he said.
The Indianapolis firm Enviroforensics was brought in to do environmental cleanup, to remove soil under the building and under the parking lot. The soil was found to be contaminated with perchloroethylene, a chemical used in the dry cleaning process. Envvironforensics officials estimate that a job the size of Bloomington Cleaners would cost roughly $500,000. * * *
Enviroforensics found that the parking lot, a large section where former owners kept their old dry cleaning machinery and another area had been contaminated by perchloroethylene, also known as perc. Perc is a derivative of chlorine that can cause problems if it leaks into the ground water. The substance seeped through the concrete floor and into the soil at the Bloomington business. Since dry cleaners must now contain the chemical, a cleanup was planned.
Enviroforensics conducted searches for historical insurance (policies taken out by past owners) that may cover costs associated with the cleanup. According to Arthur, insurance paid for the cleanup.
Arthur and Enviroforensics worked with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management to make a remediation plan for cleaning the site.
“Basically, we feel we’re cleaning what happened in the 20 years before our ownership,” Arthur said. * * *
The business will send reports of the cleanup to IDEM. From there, they can earn certification as a clean site. The clean-site certification means the business has satisfactorily gone through the remediation process and meets all the regulatory standards, [Enviroforensics owner Stephen Henshaw] said.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on July 15, 2008 10:26 AM
Posted to Environment