The district’s board of directors was concerned about perc’s toxicity and so staff had been investigating ways to achieve an earlier date.
California’s state regulations require that all perc machines must be shut down when they reach 15 years old and this has been enforced from 2010 with a final deadline of 2023.
Bay Area staff had been proposing redefining the useful lifespan as 8, 10 or 12 years rather than 15 but after looking at how such a change would affect the area’s 200 regulated drycleaning businesses, it decided that the impact would be too great.
The Bay Area Board has therefore dropped these options and is instead proposing maintaining the 15 year lifespan but requiring the phase-out process to be complete by 2020, three years ahead of the state schedule.
If option D is adopted, it would only affect about six machines and five businesses and the district would give financial assistance to these businesses to lessen the impact of the early deadline.
Staff will now present Option D to the District Board early in 2011.
