National Clothesline

Texas became the 12th state to adopt legislation that sets up a fund for remediation of contaminating drycleaning sites.

The Texas fund will be based on annual registration fees and a $15 per gallon fee on perc purchases and $5 per gallon fee on other drycleaning solvents. Carbon dioxide is not subject to the fee. Also, owners who have never used perc would be exempt from the per-gallon fees.

Owners who don’t want to pay the per-gallon fees can opt out of the program but they would be inelgible for program benefits and would still have to pay the registration fees. They would also have to post a $500,000 bond or other financial assurance with the TCEQ.

The fees are $250 per year for facilities with less than $100,000 in gross annual receipts or for drop stores that are not owned by a cleaning facility and $2,500 per year for cleaning plants that have gross annual receipts of more than $100,000.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) will adopt rules to administer and enforce the law by the end of this year.

The rules will include performance standards for drycleaning facilities and criteria for setting priorities for expenditure of funds from the newly created Dry Cleaning Facility Release Account. TCEQ will also develop corrective action completion criteria for the remediation of sites.

An advisory committee will assist the commission in ranking contaminated sites and in developing rules. Facilities operating on or before Jan. 1, 2004 would have until January, 2006 to implement the performance standards.

The legislation stipulates several performance standards for drycleaning plants, including the use of dikes or other containment structures around drycleaning machines that use perc and where perc is stored; closed, direct-coupled delivery systems (when those systems have become generally available; and no discharge of wastewater to a sanitary sewer or septic tank.

Until January 2005, disbursements from the fund would be limited to administrative and start-up costs. Those costs are limited to 15 percent of the funds credited to the account during fiscal year 2004 and 10 percent in subsequent years.

The maximum amount for corrective action for a single site will be limited to $5 million.

The law will expire in 2021.

The Royaltone Cleaning Training Academy has released its upcoming schedule for its two-day comprehensive courses on suede and leather cleaning.

Each class offers an opportunity for plant owners and managers to learn how to safely and easily spot, wetclean, dryclean, press and refinish suedes, leathers and furs with a higher profit-per-garment ratio.

Mixing classroom instruction and in-plant hands-on training, the Royaltone staff — including school founder Frank Lucenta and his son, Tom — the objective is to provide a well-rounded education for cleaners.

The class is also an excellent opportunity for plant owners to meet each other and discuss how they operate their plants.

Course dates in the near future include September 11 and 12, December 4 and 5, and February 5 and 6 next year.

Morning sessions run from 8:30 to 11: 00 a.m. on both days, followed by an hour break for lunch. The afternoon class session runs from noon to 4:30 p.m.

The cost of the two-day program is $400 per person.

Attendees are encouraged to bring two suede or leather garments to work on during the in-plant session. Each student also receives a complete instruction manual written by course instructor, Frank Lucenta, which is available in both English and Korean.

Upon completion of a course at the Royaltone Academy, attendees will be presented with a course completion certificate. After-training support is provided through a free hotline at (800) 331-5506. Class size is limited for all courses at the Royaltone Academy, so early registration is recommended.

Royaltone will also assist attendees with making hotel reservations at a local hotel located near the school.

For more information, call (918) 622-6677 or (800) 331-5506. You can also visit the Royaltone web site located at .

Just in time for cooler weather to kick in, the International Fabricare Institute and the Southwest Drycleaners Association will offer cleaners several educational opportunities in the coming months.

On Saturday, September 20, IFI instructor Lowering Mire will be heading a customer service/problem garment seminar, scheduled to take place at Commercial Equipment located at 801 S. Broadway in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

The class will run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. with a break for lunch.

It will cost $99 for each member cleaner and only $89 for each additional cleaner from the same drycleaning plant.

Non-members pay $129 each. The fee includes lunch and class materials.

Further down the road, both associations have tentatively planned a stain removal seminar in Little Rock, Arkansas on Saturday, October 4.

The seminar originally had originally been scheduled to take place on July 12.

A second stain removal seminar will be presented on Saturday, October 11 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Details are still being finalized.

For more information or registration forms, contact SDA by calling (888) 732-2567.