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Toxic chemicals linger at a long-gone dry cleaning business at 103rd Street and State Line Road in Leawood.
Tri- and Tetracholoroethylenes — banned or being phased out because of their links to Parkinson’s disease and certain cancers — have been in the soil and groundwater there since before 2010, spreading east and south toward the Missouri state line and Indian Creek.
But because a state fund to clean up dry cleaning chemicals is so strapped for money, the Leawood site has been on a wait list for years, and, given a relatively low priority ranking, may remain backlogged for an undetermined amount of time.
There’s been no documentation of health problems due to the pollution in the soil. It’s in a commercial area of paved parking lots and served by WaterOne.
Nevertheless, the contamination was concerning enough to impede work on a new county wastewater main recently, adding $153,173 to the project so the tainted soil could be dug out and properly disposed of before the pipe could be laid.
Contamination at 10314 State Line Road — the site of a former Pride Cleaners — came to light recently in county commission discussion of unexpected costs of building two new pump stations and a sewer main.
What we know about the site’s contamination
According to a 2018 report by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, businesses at the State Line Road address used dry cleaning chemicals and equipment from about 1985 to 1995. After that, it was a drop-off site until closing around 2007.
Groundwater preliminary investigations found above-risk levels of tricholoroethylene (TCE), tetracholoroethylene (PCE also known as perc) and dichloroethylene, as well as vinyl chloride.
TCE is an industrial degreasing solvent that has been used in refrigerants, paint removers, spray adhesives and as a spot remover in dry cleaning. It has been linked to Parkinson’s, kidney cancer, liver cancer and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
All uses of TCE have since been banned in the U.S.
The Environmental Protection Agency also issued an order in late 2024 to begin a 10-year phaseout of PCE (though under the Trump administration, the EPA began reviewing that decision last year to potentially reverse it).
Dry cleaning chemicals have been a problem for decades because they tend to stay in the soil and move with groundwater like a slowly spreading stain. That is what is happening with the State Line site.
The report also found that contamination had slowly seeped about 300 feet to the east, almost to the state line, and far enough south to likely impact Indian Creek. The site is a commercial intersection, but there are homes immediately to the west, though the homes are uphill from the former cleaner.
Concerning as that may sound, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment has not given the Leawood site a particularly high priority ranking for cleanup funds.
KDHE officials said last month that the former Pride Cleaner site was ranked 121st of the over 200 sites in their backlog. That ranking can change, based on new listings or new information about existing contaminated sites, according to Jill Bronaugh, communications director at KDHE.
The State Line site is also not even close to being among the largest dry cleaning contamination sites in the state.
The Haysville area south of Wichita experienced one of the biggest plumes of contamination. A dry cleaning facility associated with that contamination closed in 1996, but it wasn’t considered a high priority for cleanup until more information became available in 2016 and 2017, indicating that it had moved into private well water.
How we got here
Prior to the mid-1990s, cleaners could dispose of their wastewater down the drain. But things changed in 1995, as people sought pollution cleanup and the federal government became more involved.
In 1995, the Kansas Legislature set up a trust fund meant to ease some of the expenses of cleanup on small dry cleaning business owners, which can run to millions.
The fund’s money comes from a $100 per facility annual registration fee, fees paid by solvent purchasers (the dry cleaners themselves), a deductible of $5,000 per site for business owners who take advantage of the fund and a surcharge on customers.
Because lawmakers have not adjusted the fees to keep up with inflation, that fund is now running seriously behind what it needs to keep up with pollution mitigation.
According to KDHE figures, the trust fund receipts have plunged since 2007, from about $1.4 million a year to a recent annual average of $721,000.
As a result, cleanup has been slow going. KDHE has only resolved 18 sites since 1995. It now has 226 on its backlog.
Lawmakers try a third time
Now, as the legislature enters its final weeks of regular deliberations this year, lawmakers are trying for a third time to make changes intended to add more money to the fund and hasten cleanup.
Lawmakers on the House Water Committee writing the bill say they are under pressure to do something to beef up the fund because if they don’t, the EPA could step in and run the cleanup itself.
“I don’t think anyone wants that,” said Rep. Lindsay Vaughn, an Overland Park Democrat and the ranking minority member on the water committee.
The bill in question, Senate Bill 184, was proposed as a way to increase the funds, but ran into snags from some lawmakers who worried the tax increases would be too hard on small-business dry cleaners and would cause them to go out of business.
In its original form, SB 184 would have doubled the surcharge customers pay on dry cleaning from 2.5% (or 25 cents for every $10) to 5%. It would also double the deductible for users from $5,000 to $10,000, which KDHE testimony says is close to what it would be if it had kept up with inflation since 1995.
Those two changes would increase the annual fund revenue to $1.39 million, Kate Gleeson, deputy secretary of environment for KDHE told a recent water committee meeting.
Proponents said the bill would benefit business owners who want to clean up their sites as well as developers who hesitate to buy a location with pending contamination issues.
The bill has been negotiated with industry representatives in a way that tries to be fair, Vaughn said, noting that the burden is shouldered by the industry that caused the pollution.
“If we want to be the ones responsible for addressing this contamination then we have to find a way to fund it,” she said.
Rep. Alexis Simmons, a Shawnee County Democrat, said the untreated soil and water can cause other expenses in health problems and cognitive declines that will also drag down communities.
But the Dry Cleaning and Laundry Institute, a trade association representing the industry, urged lawmakers not to pass the bill.
Small mom-and-pop dry cleaners are still reeling from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has reduced dry cleaning demand because of remote work and more casual dressing, said Jon Meijer, director of membership for the institute, in testimony before the committee.
Increasing the surcharge that customers pay could cause more of a loss of customers, he said, noting that he would prefer a higher deductible.
This week, the committee approved a compromise. The surcharge would be raised only from 2.5% to 3% the first year, and then increase by 0.5% increments every two years until it reaches 5%.
Rep. Doug Blex, a Republican from southeast Kansas, said he still disliked raising the surcharge because “we’re punishing people for the sins of the past.” At an earlier meeting, he took the same position.
“We have a real problem of punishing people for events that happened 40 years ago and the environment somewhat heals itself,” he said, adding that he doubts the contamination problems are as bad as they were a few years ago. “You spank people when they’re bad.”
Vaughn said the compromise kept the change incremental while also addressing the problem in the fund.
But Rep. Fred Gardner, a Republican from eastern Kansas, said that with the shrinking dry cleaning industry and the number of sites to clean up, the compromise will only be a partial fix to the problem.
“I think it’s a good step, but I don’t think it’s the total solution,” he said. “Going forward, we’re going to have to come up with another plan.”
The compromise passed out of committee but still has other steps in the House and possibly Senate.
