Sierra Club to sue Cintas
Group alleges laundry violates discharge permit
By MARIE ROHDE
mrohde@journalsentinel.com
Last Updated: Oct. 31, 2003

An environmental group has given formal notice to Cintas Corp., a Franklin industrial laundry,
that it intends to sue the firm in federal court because the business has consistently
discharged excessive amounts of oil and grease into the sewers.

The excess fat could clog sewers, causing costly cleaning, require greater monitoring of and
enforcement action against the company, and pollute Lake Michigan, the environmentalists charge.

The Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District first cited Cintas for violating its discharge
permit in February 2001, only four months after the district began sampling the water being
dumped in the sewer from the plant at 9828 S. Oakwood Park Drive. In March 2003, the district
noted violations in 34% of the samples.

The Sierra Club, the group that said it will sue the company, noted that the violations have
gotten worse - both in frequency and degree - since March, according to records. The Sierra
Club said it intends to take advantage of a provision in the federal Clean Water Act that
allows citizens to directly pursue violators.

The permit allows Cintas to discharge 300 milligrams of grease per liter of water. The plant,
the Sierra Club says, is designed to discharge 75,000 gallons of water a day. That discharge
could contain the equivalent of 62 three-pound cans of lard every day if Cintas did not
exceed its limits.

According to records, Cintas samples have had as much as 1,600 milligrams of grease per
liter - more than five times what is allowable. Documents also show that Cintas discharges
about 90,000 gallons of water a day.

Cintas could face fines of up to $27,500 a day for each violation if the Sierra Club action
succeeds.

Jodi Habush Sinykin, a Midwest Environmental Advocates lawyer representing the Sierra Club,
said the environmentalists are allied with the sewerage district.

The district filed numerous "notices of violation" with the firm. According to records, MMSD
has threatened to take further action but has not done so, largely because of Cintas'
promises to improve.

"MMSD keeps getting led on by Cintas, who says the problems will be corrected in two months,
then five months, six months," Sinykin said. "Nothing ever happens."

MMSD spokesman Pete Topczewski said the district is required to follow a stepped-up
enforcement schedule and could not take Cintas to court at this time. He said Cintas was in
the process of installing equipment that it believes will correct the problem. The equipment 
was supposed to be installed by Sept. 1, but the firm had difficulty in obtaining it. It now
expects to be fully operational by the first of the year.

Topczewski said the grease produced by the firm is not as harmful as restaurant grease and
does not pose an immediate threat to sewers or the treatment plant. Topczewski noted that an
environmentalist group had successfully sued another industrial laundry in the 1980s under
similar circumstances.

"Cintas has been trying to do as little as possible to get into compliance," Topczewski said.
"By that I mean they want to incur less financial costs."

Cintas representatives did not return a reporter's telephone calls.

In a July 22 report, MMSD inspector Thomas Nowicki noted that Cintas was still considering
installing a machine that it had talked about adding in 2002.

"I provided a table showing enforcement actions since commencement of sampling," Nowicki wrote.
"I indicated that I would escalate action if violations continue in 2004."

Sinykin said Cintas is one of five industrial cleaners in the metro area, and that the other
four - American Industrial, G&K Services, Industrial Towel and Uniform, and Spic & Span - have
all made investments in equipment that prevents excess grease and oil from being discharged
into the sewers. They also have additional disposal and maintenance costs, she said, noting
that Cintas' continued violations give it a competitive advantage.

A Louisiana environmental group took similar action in September against a Cintas plant in
Baton Rouge.

On its Web site, Cintas boasts that it is the largest provider of uniforms in North America. 
The company's profits were $249 million last year, and dividends increased by 8% in fiscal
2003, according to the Web site.


From the Nov. 1, 2003 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel