Causes of Pollution:
Area Sources-Dry cleaners:
The primary chemical that many dry cleaners still use and is of concern is perchloroethylene (otherwise known as PERC, PCE, or tetracholoroethylene).
This chemical is persistent in the environment and poses risks to air, water, and soil. It is also a known carcinogen, as well as a suspected developmental, reproductive, respiratory, gastrointestinal, liver,kidney, and skin toxic. Based on the 2005 MADEP ERP data, the average air emissions per unit at reporting drycleaners is 761 pounds annually. Using this statewide average as a benchmark to compare to the reporting facilities in the three target communities – only the two larger facilities, reporting two machines each, were above the statewide average for air emissions.
This suggests that the other smaller facilities are managing their chemical usage well, and that the two larger facilities, one in Marblehead and one in Beverly, may have room for improvement. In fact, these two drycleaners rank No. 7 and No. 21 respectively as highest emissions among the 313 Drycleaners that self-reported with full data statewide even though they are comparable in the number of machines on-site. (If you look at just the drycleaners with two machines on site,as reported by these two cleaners, they rank No. 4 and No.10 respectively among 36 statewide.) For 2005, the known reported amount of perchloroethylene released into the air for the three towns is 6,100 pounds.
However, if we use the statewide average emission for the additional cleaners identified by our mappers as either drycleaning on-site or potentially drycleaning on-site and assume that these additional facilities have only one machine per facility (since the majority of state reporters only had one machine), then the area could be experiencing 15,300 pounds annually of percholoroethylene emission. Thus, the emissions may be more than double the amount currently being reported to MADEP.
Drycleaners that do not have to report under the MADEP ERP are those that:
- Do not dryclean on-site.
- Do not use perchloroethylene for dry cleaning.
- Have only coin-operated dry cleaning machines.
- Purchase more than 2,100 gallons of perchloroethylene and operate only “dry-to-dry” type machines.
- Purchase more than 1,800 gallons of perchloroethylene and operate only “transfer” type machines.
| DRYCLEANERS |
# Facilities reporting in ERP |
ERP Reported VOC pounds to Air |
# Facilities reporting or identified by mappers |
VOC pounds Assumed to Air (using statewide avg for those not reporting) |
If Used Statewide Avg per machine (VOC pounds to air) |
| TOTAL |
9 |
6,140 |
20 |
15,277 |
12,944 |
| SALEM |
5 |
646 |
9 |
4,453 |
4,568 |
| BEVERLY |
3 |
2,154 |
7 |
5,199 |
4,568 |
| MARBLEHEAD |
1 |
3,341 |
4 |
5,625 |
3,807 |
Mapping Versus DEP ERP filing Discrepencies:
Beverly Notes: Of the 11 Drycleaners identified by the community mappers, only three were designated as actually processing drycleaning on-site, and one of these did self-report through MADEP ERP. However, there were two additional ERP self-reporters that had been identified by the community mappers as a ‘maybe’ that did, in fact, self-report. This left two that were identified as on-site drycleaners that did not self-report and an additional two that were identified by community mappers as possibly doing drycleaning on site.
Salem Notes: Of the 10 drycleaners identified by the community mappers, only three were designated as actually processing drycleaning on-site, and two of these did self-report through MADEP ERP. However, there were two additional ERP self-reporters that had not been identified by the community mappers, and one that the community mappers identified as a ‘maybe’ that did, in fact, self-report.
Marblehead Notes: Of the 11 Drycleaners found in Marblehead, only two were designated by the community mappers as actually processing drycleaning on-site. Of these, only one self-reported as part of MADEP ERP.
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