The Loan Committee™

When is secondary containment required to be in place?

According to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP), facilities that begin operation on or after January 1, 1996, must be equipped with secondary containment when the business begins operation. Secondary containment for these facilities must consist of rigid and impermeable containment vessels installed beneath each machine or item of equipment in which drycleaning solvents are used.

Facilities that began operations prior to January 1, 1996, must be equipped with secondary containment by January 1, 1997. Secondary containment for these facilities must consist of rigid and impermeable containment vessels, or a dike around each machine or item of equipment which drycleaning solvents are used.

All facilities, regardless of when operation began, must install secondary containment around any solvent or waste solvent storage area by January 1, 1997. The secondary containment for storage areas must be either a rigid and impermeable vessel, or a surrounding dike.

The rigid and impermeable vessels shall be constructed of metal or other material that cannot be permeated by drycleaning solvents, according to manufacturer product use and limitation recommendations. All diked containment areas must be sealed or otherwise made impervious to drycleaning solvents, including floor surfaces, floor drains, floor joints and inner dike walls. Concrete or asphalt floor surfaces are not impervious to drycleaning solvents. In order to maintain a secondary containment dike that is impervious to drycleaning solvents, all floor surfaces, floor drains and floor joints within the diked area must be sealed with a solvent-resistant sealer and/or caulking compound (sealant).

The FDEP does not recommend any specific floor sealers or sealants. However, the sealer and sealant must be compatible with and resistant to all solvents used at the facility for a contact period of at least 72 hours, according to manufacturer product use and limitation recommendations. The sealant must be applied and maintained in accordance with manufacturer specifications. Sealant specifications and a record of application dates must be maintained at the facility.

FORMER BANK SPACE FOR LEASE
2800 East Oakland Park Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33306
Click here for flyer!

PROPERTY FEATURES:
~ 3,132 SF Former Branch Bank Location
~ 2-Lane Drive Thru with ATM
~ 3,121 SF 2nd Floor Bank Office Space Also Available For Lease
~ Immediate Occupancy
~ East Fort Lauderdale Corridor – .5 Mile East of N Federal Highway (US-1)
~ Close Proximity to Shopping, Restaurants and Fort Lauderdale Beach
~ Located at the SEC of E Oakland Park Boulevard and Bayview Drive

CONTACT:
The Rotella Group, Inc.
Rick Edlund or Buzz Smith
3300 N. Federal Highway
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33306
P: 954-568-9015 F: 954-568-9597
rick@rotellagroup.com or buzz@rotellagroup.com
www.rotellagroup.com

Loans are made by participating lenders under an agreement with the SBA to originate, service, and liquidate loans in accordance with the SBA’s rules, regulations, policies, and procedures. Keeping your SBA loans in compliance is imperative to ensuring the collectability of your guaranty. This begins with managing the 7(a) loan approval process in an effort to mitigate risk of potential loss. read entire article… Source: BancServe.

The biggest red flag at a shopping center would be the presence or former presence of a dry cleaning operation. Many releases that occur as a result of a dry cleaning business were not necessarily the result of negligence and could even have resulted through an inadvertent discharge of small quantities of dry cleaning solvents through piping. Soil and groundwater cleanup target levels (CTLs) for dry cleaning compounds in the State of Florida are very low, i.e., you don’t need very much to cause a problem. In addition, these compounds are heavier than water and tend to “sink” in the aquifer, making a release more costly to assess and many times more costly to remediate.

A state funded program was in place to address releases from dry cleaning facilities. The State of Florida Dry Cleaning Solvent Cleanup Program (DCSCUP) provides State funded assessment and remediation of soil and/or groundwater that has been contaminated as a result of dry cleaning solvents from dry cleaning facilities. An eligibility requirement of the program did require that dry cleaning solvent compounds be detected in the soil and/or groundwater; however, it was not required that the detected concentrations meet or exceed regulatory limits in order to make an application to the program. Site remediation under the program did not include third party liability. Applications to the program were not accepted after December 31, 1998.

According to a representative of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP), 1,563 dry cleaning facilities (current and former) that were contaminated as a result of a release of dry cleaning solvents, made an application to the DCSCUP. A total of 1,400 sites were deemed eligible for the program. FDEP however, believes that at least 2,800 facilities could have applied, indicating that only about one-half of these types of sites would have been eligible for the program.

It is also interesting to note that facilities deemed ineligible for the DCSCUP cannot be compelled to assess and remediate their sites if knowledge of the release was the result of having made an application to the program. Therefore, do not assume that a dry cleaning facility has not impacted the subsurface if they were deemed program ineligible.  Contact MADELINE FELL at mfell@sgfenvironmental.com for additional information regarding environmental concerns associated with dry cleaner facilities or questions regarding phase I environmental site assessments.