Water Recovery Issues At The National Western Stock Show

For the past few years, one of our clients has had five or six vehicles on display at the annual National Western Stock Show.  About half way through the stock show they have us pressure wash the cars to clean all the dust that builds up on them from the show.  We haven’t had any problems the past few years, but this year we were stopped by the building managers.

The management at the show stopped us because they were told they needed EPA water recovery for any water generated by pressure washing.  When they found out we were washing cars on their property, they stopped us.

Since we were only using water to rinse, then chamois the cars dry and there were no storm drains the water could get to, we have never worried about EPA water recovery in this situation. We use less than two gallons of water per car, so there isn’t enough water to recover!

We are fully aware of all the EPA water recovery regulations and we are pro-active about acting on those regulations.  We thought we were fine washing these few cars at the stock show location, but the management there had been instructed not to allow any water generated by pressure washing to go down the storm drain.

When you think about the environment of the stock show, it makes sense. They have a lot of livestock that carry dust and hair and who knows what from wherever they came. And they generate a large volume of “fertilizer”. None of this would be acceptable to enter the storm drains.

If we had known EPA water recovery was going to be required we would have sent a crew with a recovery unit.

This is a good illustration of the increasing enforcement of the EPA water recovery laws. Areas we’ve never had to recover before now have to be reconsidered – and we always err on the side of caution. When there’s any doubt, we send a recovery unit. We do a lot of EPA water recovery, probably more than anyone else in Colorado. And it’s important to us to work closely with the authorities.

But EPA water recovery isn’t free.

It takes more time and equipment to do it the right way. In this case, it would have been an extra $40. So this client chose not to wash and since they had so few cars to be washed, it made sense for them. The dust wouldn’t make enough difference for the last couple of days of the stock show to justify the expense.