EPA and Washouts

[DiamondWash]

I currently have signs up in every s.s bay and at my changers as well as my credit card system stating the following:
___________________________________
3 Simple Rules
NO
Pickup Bed Washouts
(So DO NOT OPEN your Tailgate!!!)
Sheetrock/Drywall Equipment Washing
Asphalt/Concrete Equipment Washing

Smile your on Video Survaillance
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Now I have a problem with drywall installers and other commercial industries reading the signs and not obeying the rules and making one hell of a mess, my question is is there a EPA code or statement that is legal I can throw at them which includes a "huge fine" for washing this sh*t down my pits when I catch them or have to track them down? I checked with the EPA website and a bunch of articles about carwashes but none pertaining to this issue.

Any and all help is appriciated.

 

[Wash-A-Roo]

Google the United States Clean Water Act.......and google it from here so Bill gets a few cents!!!

 

[pitzerwm]

Put your own fine for bay clean up. If you have video, use it and drag their sorry asses into court, with the sign you will win. If you don't have video, get it or forget the whole thing. a$$holes are always a$$holes until you make it expensive.

 

[Eric H]

Bill is giving you good advice. You could call the state DEP, they helped me with my pit mud questions.

About a year ago I wash at one of my washes and saw a pos pick up come in with the tailgate down and full of misc junk. He saw me and just pulled thru the bay and left. I finished up for the day and when to my next wash. The same guy was there with gallons of white paint coming out of the bay thru the driveway and into the stormdrain. I called the health dept to see what I should do about it, they said "nothing, just wash it down the drain".

Your not likely to get any government agency to help you on this, unless you live in the NW where they care about things like the enviorment.

 

[MEP001]

I caught a guy on video washing paint out of his bed, which went into the storm drain. I talked to the police who said they would charge him with illegal dumping, but the angle he entered didn't let the DVR get the license plate number clearly.

 

[Greg Pack]

In my state we can( prosecute truck bed washers under criminal littering if we have signs prohibiting it. - So I cite that code in small print on my signs. You can probably find it on the net.

 

[DiamondWash]

Thanks for everybodys input "always helpful" we are installing new "tag cams" to help us with such incidents even if they use cash I can still get the plate numbers I wish I had the cams with my incident that happened earlier at my wash. But I will contact the local epa and get some knowledge on the clean water act as well.

Thanks everybody

Steve Heck
Diamond Car Wash & Propane
Grimes, Iowa, 50111
https:www.diamondcarwash.biz

 

[johnny]

be very careful with the epa
if someone put something in your pits.it your responsibilty to clean it up and then you have to go after the bad guy
its your property and they go after the property owner
they hold the property owner responsible
i caught a guy dumping old gas in a bay it cost him $300.00 in fines,but if someone complained to epa i would have to pump the pit etc....

 

[MEP001]

There was a story years ago about a car wash owner who called the EPA on someone changing his oil in the pits, and the EPA shut him down for three months, fined him $10,000 and had him thoroughly clean the pits. The guy who dumped the oil had nothing to his name - a lawsuit for damages would've been a waste of time.

 

[DiamondWash]

Thank You for that info I will greatly take that to mind when calling the EPA not telling them I own a wash but just needing info on that issue.

 

[pitzerwm]

Make a note of this. Whenever you call a government entity for info, do not correctly ID yourself. You are just asking for some over paid, under educated person deciding to get off his butt and give you a bad time.

The lady next door is trying to re-new her daycare/school license and one of the government employees is determined to "close her down" demanding all kinds of stuff that isn't in the law. Problem is that the lady doesn't have the money to hire the lawyer to fix it, so she has to keep jumping over these hoops.

 

[Ben's Car Wash]

I posted this yesterday, but my son scans daily and deletes the cookies... so if i don't click "remember me" when I post... it goes into internet heaven. So I'll re-type again.

Do Not call the DEP or EPA and tell them that someone has dumped at your site unless you are willing to foot the bill for the clean up. Story from my personal experance:

I owned an Assisted Living Facilitying that I bought in 1995. After about 6 months, I learned that the previous owned burried asbestous shingles on a portion of the property after a building burned down. Instead of paying to have it hauled off, he dug a hole and burried the materal along with filling in a historical retention area. I was digging out the retention pond that flooded my property (because this A-hole filled the dam thing in) when a neighbor told me about the burrined roofing shingles (they were over 40 years old). I had other issues with this man and was presueing a lawsuit for "non-disclosure" and decided to call the DEP (Department of Environmental Protection) to find out about the shingles. I got a lesson. Basically I was told this; DEP "Your telling me you have knowledge of a class 1 hazardous materal on your property"?. Me "Yes". DEP "I never spoke to you, and you didn't hear this from me, let it alone and never mention it again. Asbestos is only a hazard if airborne. Leave it burried." I put a large double wide mobil home over the spot.

Superfund sites exist across the US because corporations and polluters would just walk away rather than spend millions to clean up a toxic site. As the laws went, the responsibility went to the "present" owner of the land, not to the polluter or the one responsible. It would become a civil litigation between me and the former owner to get restitution or a breach of contract for "non-disclosure" should I had to have cleaned up my land.

For a SS car wash, I would suggest having some oil/gas soak socks or spill kits that meet EPA regs and a "policy" to handle such containment issues. I nearly made a very costly mistake by calling the DEP. Had I gotten a prick on the phone, it could have cost me over $100,000 to clean up some a$$holes mistake in burring roofing materal.