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EPA Settles Case Clean Touch Car Wash/Quick Lube, Inc. And Gasteria Oil Corporation For Clean Water Act Violations

Release Date: 07/06/1999
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(#99106a) New York, New York -- The Clean Touch Car Wash/Quick Lube, Inc. and Gaseteria Oil Corporation will conduct a cleanup and pay $18,000 in penalties as a result of illegally discharging automotive oils and fluids into floor drains at their facility on Hylan Boulevard in Staten Island, N.Y., according to a settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The Clean Touch Car Wash/Quick Lube, Inc. operates the facility. Gaseteria Oil Corporation owns it. Under a settlement signed with EPA, Clean Touch and Gaseteria will close the floor drains, remove contaminated soil and treat the contaminated groundwater at the site. Under the Safe Drinking Water Act, facilities that discharge potentially hazardous fluids into underground injection wells, which include floor drains, dry wells and septic systems, must first obtain proper authorization from the EPA. Gaseteria Oil and Clean Touch Car Wash/Quick Lube did not have authorization.

"Automotive fluids are considered hazardous because they can contain, among other things, heavy metals and hydrocarbons," said Jeanne M. Fox, EPA Regional Administrator. "Even a small amount of hazardous fluid could endanger public health and the environment. In this case, poor waste disposal practices, resulted in benzene contamination of the groundwater under the site."

Gaseteria Oil Corporation and Clean Touch Car Wash/Quick Lube, Inc. were required to submit to EPA information about the floor drains in the Hylan Boulevard facility and they failed to do so. EPA conducted an inspection of the facility in August 1997 and determined that the facility was discharging fluids from its automotive fluid changing operation into a floor drain. The agency sent a letter to Clean Touch Car Wash/Quick Lube, Inc. and to Gaseteria Oil Corporation requiring them to submit a permit application or closure plan for the floor drain. The companies did not comply with EPA's requirements, and a subsequent May 1998 inspection revealed that the needed clean-out and remediation of the drains had not occurred. In July 1998, EPA issued a complaint to Gaseteria and Clean Touch Car Wash/Quick Lube, Inc. Today's agreement settles that complaint.

For more information contact:
Mary Helen Cervantes-Gross, Press Office
EPA Region 2
290 Broadway
NY, NY 10007-1866
Voice: 212-637-3673 FAX: 212-637-4445 E-Mail: cervantes.mary@epamail.epa.gov