Do you have a Hazardous Communication Program (HazCom Program) in place?  If you are a dry-cleaning facility and use tetrachloroethylene (PERC) and/or other chemicals for dry-cleaning or spotting, then you should have a current and updated HazCom Program in place.

In 1983, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) released the Hazardous Communication Standards, which was expanded to include non-manufacturing employers in 1987.  The Hazardous Communication Standards provide employees with information regarding the hazards of the chemicals they come into contact with during work or have the potential to come into contact with (“Right to Know”). 

In order to achieve a safer working environment for employees and to comply with OSHA, the implementation of a HazCom Program is mandatory when employees are or have the potential to be exposed to hazardous chemicals.  Workplace illness and injuries that are chemical related may be prevented by implementing a HazCom Program.  The HazCom Program is designed to aid in the relations between the employer and employee by opening regular lines of communication.  In addition, a HazCom Program will assist the owner/operator to avoid potential OSHA citations, violations, and related compliance costs. 

In past conversations with drycleaners when the topic of a HazCom Program is mentioned I usually get a puzzled look or a piece of paper that says there are dangerous chemicals in the facility and management will address any spills or leaks.  A successful HazCom Program should be much more in depth than a simple letter or sign.  The main purpose of a HazCom Program is to ensure that the hazards of all chemicals located in the facility are assessed and that all information regarding the potential for physical and/or health hazards associated with those chemicals is conveyed to the employees.  It is the owner/operators responsibility to comply with OSHA and to provide information and training for each employee.

A successful HazCom Program should be a clearly written, comprehensive program that includes but is not limited to lists of hazardous materials in each work area, material safety data sheets (MSDS) for each hazardous chemical in the work area, container labeling protocols, employee information and training. 

One of the most important sections of the HazCom Program is in regards to the MSDSes, which provide the necessary information for evaluating the hazard of a chemical, proper handling, emergency procedures, and what type of personal protective equipment should be utilized when dealing with each chemical.  Copies of each chemical’s MSDS can be obtained by submitting a written request to the manufacturer of each chemical or by searching the manufacturer’s website via the internet.  In addition, when chemical manufacturers supply products directly to the facility they are required by law to make available upon request a MSDS for each shipped product.  As new chemicals are purchased, it is important to update the inventory list within the HazCom Program, but also to notify employees of a new hazard in the work area and how to manage it. 

Another important topic of the HazCom Program is the labeling process for chemical containers or containers utilized for the storage of contaminated products.  If a container is not labeled or labeled improperly then proper use, storage, and protection will be unknown and the chance of an accident is increased.  In addition, it is required by OSHA that containers of hazardous chemicals must be labeled and contain the identity of the hazardous chemical, the appropriate hazard warning (health concerns, exposure pathways, and what systems are affected in the human body), and the name and address of the chemical manufacturer.  When dealing with shipped containers or locally purchased over the counter chemicals (cleaning agents or other maintenance supplies) the owner/operator should ensure that the containers are properly labeled following the criteria expressed above.  If locally purchased over the counter chemicals do not comply with the labeling criteria then that container should not be used.  The exception to the rule is when you transfer chemicals from their original container into portable containers, which will be used immediately by  a single person for a single shift are not subject to follow the same labeling criteria as previously mentioned.  Although labeling is not required on the portable container, it should at a minimum have the name of the chemical and the associated hazard (s). 

Environmental contamination from dry-cleaning facilities is commonly observed.  One way to help reduce the potential for contamination is to implement a HazCom Program.  Besides the protection of the employer and employees, a HazCom Program can assist in preventing future contamination of the property by ensuring that all employees are aware of the chemicals located on the property, as well as how to maintain them and address spills or leaks.

Regardless of the level of care that is administered when handling chemicals, there is always the potential for spills on the ground or leaks from storage tanks, storage drums, or chemical containers.  Spilled or leaked chemicals can infiltrate through concrete into the soil and/or dissolve into the groundwater and begin to migrate with the groundwater. Vapors associated with the contaminated soil and/or groundwater have the potential to migrate to areas occupied by buildings.   These potential vapors can enter buildings through cracks in basements or slab foundations, sewer lines, and any other type of opening.  On some occasions the vapors that enter buildings can reach concentrations that may be harmful to human health.  By having a HazCom Program in place and assuring that all employees have been trained and understand the HazCom Program, a business can greatly reduce the potential for contamination due to spills or leaks.

In closing, there are many regulations and standards in place for businesses that utilize hazardous chemicals.  One of the major reasons for these standards and regulations is to protect the owner/operator and employees from hazards associated with their daily work activities.  As discussed, one standard that is directly associated with health and hazards is the Hazardous Communications Standard.   By following the OSHA and implementing a HazCom Program an owner/operator can decrease the potential for contamination from leaks or spills and ultimately provide a safer workplace environment.

If you need assistance in developing, preparing and implementing a HazCom Program, Environmental Forensic Investigations, Inc. is a full service environmental consultant with over 20 years of environmental compliance experience and can assist you in your needs.  Further assistance can be found on the United States Occupational Safety and Health Administration website at http://www.osha.gov/.

The Indiana Supreme Court has issued its long-anticipated decision in State Automobile Mutual Insurance Company v. Flexdar, Inc. and in so doing has re-affirmed its ruling in American States Ins. Co. v. Kiger, 662 N.E.2d 945 (Ind. 1996) that the absolute “pollution exclusion” typically appearing in commercial general liability (“CGL”) policies issued in policy periods beginning in 1986 and later is ambiguous and unenforceable as to most, if not all, types of environmental liabilities. 

Declining to take State Auto’s suggestion that it bring Indiana’s law more in line with those of other states, the Court rejected what it called “literal” as well as “situational” interpretations of the absolute pollution exclusion, opting instead to stay the course and reaffirm its prior rulings regarding the ambiguity of the exclusion.

In considering whether the release of trichloroethylene to soil and groundwater in Indiana was a pollution event that might cause the court to apply the pollution exclusion, the Court revisited its decision in American States Ins. Co. v. Kiger, 662 N.E.2d 945 (Ind. 1996), and again held that the definition of “pollutant” in the State Auto policies was ambiguous, rendering the pollution exclusion unenforceable.  The State Auto policies had defined “pollutant” as “any solid, liquid, gaseous or thermal irritant or contaminant, including smoke, vapor, soot, fumes, acids, alkalis, chemicals, and waste.”  The Court observed that if this definition were read literally, “practically every substance would qualify as a ‘pollutant’ . . . , rendering the exclusion meaningless.”  Because the definition of “pollutant” in the State Auto policies did not specifically identify TCE as a “pollutant,” the Court held that the “pollution exclusion” was ambiguous and unenforceable, and did not preclude coverage for Flexdar’s environmental liabilities to IDEM.  

The Supreme Court spelled out its holding in this case clearly.  It stated: “In this case we examine whether the language of a pollution exclusion in a commercial general liability policy is ambiguous.  We hold that it is.”   The rule in the Flexdar opinion was most clearly stated in the Court’s assertion that “Where an insurer’s failure to be more specific renders its policy ambiguous, we construe the policy in favor of coverage.”

 Pointing to a change in policy language made in 2005 that more clearly defined pollutants by reference to substances identified in specific Federal laws and certain Federal publications, the Court stated that State Auto had finally begun to utilize the language that it could have used in earlier policies to eliminate ambiguity and render the pollution exclusion effective.  Absent this more specific identification of “pollutant” however, it could find no reason to break with precedent and exclude coverage in this matter.

The Indiana Supreme Court’s Flexdar opinion provides a “bright line” rule for courts to follow and a reasonable expectation to Indiana policyholders that their historical CGL coverage will be available to cover environmental clean up costs caused by releases of pollutants at least in years prior to the inclusion of more specific pollution exclusionary language.

Environmental impact due to historical drycleaning practices is not a rarity.  In fact, it’s common to find drycleaning solvents in the soil, groundwater and vapor under and around current and former drycleaning facilities.  A big part of our job is to figure out the means to best remediate the environmental impact. 

The purpose of remediation is to abate the environmental impact, clean up the contamination and protect human health and the environment.  But just how much are we affecting our overall environment by cleaning your site?  Does removing 50 tons of impacted soil from under a drycleaning facility clean a site?  Where does that soil go?  Does the installation of a mechanical remediation system such as Soil Vapor Extraction (SVE) not have its own environmental impacts?  The systems run on electricity and electricity must be produced, many times by the combustion of coal or hydrocarbons which creates greenhouse gas emissions and sulfur and other non-friendly emissions.  Even the protective Tyvek suits, Latex gloves and disposable sampling equipment creates waste which is landfilled.  On one hand we are cleaning up a problem and on the other we are creating a problem.

Does the positive outcome at your site negatively affect someone else?  The answer is difficult to quantify.  The recent “Green Movement” has forced us as environmental consultants to more carefully consider that answer.

Make no mistake, the world is going green.  The green ideology is here to stay.  How then, have the remediation scientists who have recognized the shift in thinking changed their remediation methods?  There are many ways.  Remediation scientists are generally very cognizant of the environment and typically keep up with current environmental issues closely. The following are means by which remediation scientists and engineers are more “environmentally” cleaning the environment.

Landfill Technology

Advancements in landfill design and construction has allowed increased confidence that if impacted soil is placed in a landfill, that it will not re-enter the environment through leaching to groundwater or vapor release.  When landfills have reached capacity, the land is safe enough to use for parks or golf courses.  Additionally, landfill gasses can be collected and utilized to power onsite energy needs.  Of course, as a society we still need to work on reducing the emissions generated by the garbage trucks.

Bioremediation

The groundwater in most locations has naturally occurring microbes that, under the right conditions, break down drycleaning solvents to non-hazardous materials.  This process occurs slowly under natural, steady state conditions, but can be sped up or enhanced.  Enhanced Reductive Dechlorination (ERD) is a widely used and accepted remediation technology that involved the addition of materials that create chemical conditions that enhance  and speed up the breakdown of the solvents.  Some of the materials that we have used to enhance the breakdown of solvents in groundwater include corn syrup, dairy cheese whey, food grade soy based vegetable oil, molasses, among other glucose based material.  These materials are naturally occurring renewable resources and require a relatively small amount of industrial energy consumption to produce.  The consumption of these materials also supports the agricultural industry.

Phytoremediation

Plants, such as Osier (willow), Poplar tress, Pine trees, switch grass and even mushrooms have been planted in areas where shallow soil and groundwater impacts are present.  These species of plants collect the impact through their roots and respirate them.  This type of remediation can only be used in certain settings, but has been proven effective.

Combustible Vapor Energy Recycling

Although this type of remedation technology may not apply directly to the drycleaning industry (chlorinated solvents are non-combustible), it is a good example of sustainable energy use.  During the remediation of petroleum fuel spills, the vapors are collected and sent to an internal combustion engine similar to that in an automobile.  These combustible petroleum vapors are used to power the engine that in turn, requires more vapors be collected to sustain the combustion process.  This type of closed system is self sustaining and requires much less outside energy than typical systems.

Onsite Solar and Wind Power Supply

Solar panels and wind turbines have been purchased or rented to supply portions of remediation systems with renewable and sustainable power.  Solar panels can be placed at each remedial wellhead or on the roof of a site building.  Wind turbines are more effective in rural settings, but have been proven effective sources of energy in powering remediation systems.  These types of energy sources are effective for any type of mechanical system that may need power for months to years thereby cutting energy costs and reducing the overall environmental impact.

f 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.

The soon to be replaced Risk Integrated System of Closure, or RISC program, has been in effect since February 2001 and has provided default cleanup levels for soil and groundwater in both residential and commercial/industrial scenarios in cookbook fashion.  Groundwater levels were established largely on health-based levels deemed safe for human consumption in residential and industrial exposure scenarios.  Soil levels were established primarily on the most conservative of direct contact, ingestion or migration to groundwater pathways, the latter of which was typically selected as default.

The RISC Residential Default Closure Levels (RDCLs) and the Industrial Default Closure Levels (IDCLs) have provided distinguishable targets for site screening activities and the development of remedial action objectives over the past decade or so.  By matching the desired land use with the corresponding soil and groundwater RDCL or IDCL presented in the RISC program, the amount of cleanup work necessary at individual sites was fairly evident in RISC default approach. 

With the arrival of the Remediation Closure Guide tomorrow, February 22, 2012, the process by which many property owners evaluate the level of risk associated with impacts at their site has changed fundamentally.  While groundwater screening levels remain intact (with appropriate updates based on recently updated toxicological information from EPA), the soil to groundwater migration pathway has been eliminated from consideration as a driver for establishing soil screening levels for volatile organic compounds; replaced instead with a series of “Rules of Thumb”.  Direct measurement of the soil to groundwater leaching pathway can also be conducted on a site-specific basis via the synthetic precipitation leaching procedure (SPLP).

It appears that the intended purpose of the new Remediation Closure Guide is to provide a less rigid approach to assessing and cleaning up environmental remediation sites in light of intended future land use, real-world risk caused by impacts and the tolerability of land use restrictions in support of site closure.  While the Remediation Closure Guide still provides guidance for site investigations and cleanups in the same cookbook style as its RISC predecessor, the recipe seems considerably more complex.

Check for the latest developments on this topic, including the incorporation of vapor intrusion assessment guidelines,  in the Announcements section of the EnviroForensics Homepage.