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From:
Date: 01 Oct 2000
Time: 01:18:37
Remote Name: 58.palmdesert-01rs15rt.ca.dial-access.att.net
International Car Wash Association is planning its five-year Legislative goals to lobby our politicians to make laws that help them make more money. At the same time will limit your rights as consumers. In part III of their plan, they will use The Draught Restrictions of various regions to limit charity car wash fundraisers. In Puget Sound Region in Washington State they successfully were able to ban charity car wash fundraisers on the heels of the Save The Salmon Issues. They bragged about this to the Industry saying in a trade show that the entire PR campaign that followed cost only a few thousand dollars and resulted in a great revenue booster for their members. They say the non-profit groups alternative is to bring the cars to the fixed site washes and therefore not pollute and those groups would receive a percentage of the revenue. It is interesting that the car wash owners were able to get a cut out of the process and at the same time use this as a PR Move. Some would say this is a great move on their part. I say it is pathetic and unscrupulous. They are now lobbying to disallow washing of your own personal car in your own driveway. Again using the salmon as a reason. Here is their plan to do the same PR trick in places like GA and TX, only this time using the water conservation issue.
Part 3: Car Wash Conservation Certification Based on the success of several regional programs and the third party endorsement by water conservation consultant Chris Brown, the third strategy adopted by the International Carwash Association Board of Directors includes the creation of a non-regulatory water-efficiency partnership between the International Carwash Association, local professional car wash operators, and regulatory agencies. This program will encourage professional car washes, as well as other unrelated businesses that use water, to reduce water consumption while increasing the efficiency, profitability, and competitiveness of these businesses. The plan would include the input and involvement of at least one utility to create a standard template that can be tailored for use by regulatory agencies across the country. As part of this certification program, a Charity Car Wash template will be included in order to assist regulatory agencies implement alternatives within their communities.
Here is a chapter from my Car Washing Fundraiser Book. They Association is failing to mention that car wash fundraisers build team work and camaraderie amongst the kids performing the work and that there are simple ways to protect the environment by blocking storm drains and vacuuming water and discharging it safely. They also fail to relate the fact that by paying attention to how the water is used water conservation is easy and even five times as efficient as a full service car wash. Read the chapter below, because I guarantee you the Car Wash Association will not want this information out.
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(EXCERPT CHAPTER II)
WATER CONSERVATION
Now that we will have cleaner waste water run off from our car wash fundraiser, we need to look at ways to conserve the water we use.
If you wash your car in your driveway with a garden hose and shut-off nozzle, you will use five gallons of water to fill your soap bucket to get suds. You will then wet down your car for two minutes or more, soap your car and then rinse the car for four minutes or more. If the garden hose has 60 PSI of pressure or more it puts out a minimum of ten gallons of water per minute (GPM). The total amount of water usage is as follows:
5 Gallons in the bucket plus 20 Gallons to wet the car @ 10 GPM plus 40 Gallons to rinse the car @ 10 GPM equals 65 Gallons of water
This would be a very water conscious person in good shape who can move briskly around the car. This person would have at least sixty gallons moving down the gutter into the storm drain.
USING A PRESSURE WASHER VERSUS A GARDEN HOSE
If you use a pressure washer during your fundraiser you can wash twenty cars with one capful of soap in a two-thirds filled five gallon water bucket. Of course your soap will be biodegradable. At least twenty-five percent of the cars you wash will not require the use of soap due to previous wax coats that have been applied. These cars combine to lower your wet/rinse cycle to about thirty seconds of spray time or 1.2 gallons of water per car. This is fifty times more efficient. You can wash fifty cars with a pressure washer to the one car washed with a garden hose in the driveway. This constitutes a significant savings in water.
If you spray a car with special equipment (pressure washer) you will get a fine mist spray. The water can be applied evenly and gives the run off a spread effect. Thus the water that reaches the ground evaporates quickly. A car that needs to be soaped will have a wet/rinse cycle of about one minute and will use about two gallons of water. This water never reaches the storm drains.
You can also contract with a local professional mobile car washer or car detailer to help your group. They only use 2.4 gallons of water per car and their pressure washers only put out 2.4 GPM. If they spray a car for twenty seconds to get it wet, then soap off the dirt and then rinse the car for approximately forty seconds this equals sixty seconds or one minute of sprayed water at 2.4 gallons per minute.
Working with a local professional can be very efficient. You can also purchase a pressure washer from a large department store and do it yourself. By the time you’ve washed 150-300 cars at a fundraiser you too will become very efficient with the water. Look for a pressure washer that puts out 1,500 PSI (pounds per square inch). Gasoline driven units are best, but electric units are about one-half the cost. Remember, if you plan on buying an electric unit make sure that you have an outlet near your designated wash area. Expect to pay $300 for a good electric unit and $500 to $800 for a decent gas unit.
You may also be able to borrow a pressure washer from a local painting contractor. They use them a lot to clean the exterior of homes and commercial buildings before painting. See if someone in your group has a parent who is a painter. Maybe they will volunteer to act as a sprayer during your fundraiser since they have experience using this type of equipment.
If you will be using a straight garden hose remember that fundraisers generally use approximately 3,600 gallons of water; 360 minutes @ 10 GPM. So use shut-off nozzles or kink the hose when you’re not spraying. If you use a pressure washer you will cut your wash time in half thus allowing you time to do twice the number of cars and earn more money. You will also have a lot less water to worry about that might be going into the storm drain.
At one fundraiser using a pressure washer, we washed 520 cars with 950 gallons of water in six hours. Approximately 150 cars with 3,600 gallons of water is generally the maximum amount of cars washed at this type of function using conventional methods. At this particular fundraiser we washed three and one-half times as many cars with one-third the water. We saved the City of Thousand Oaks, California 2,650 gallons of water that day and made the kids a substantial amount of money.
Fixed site car washes also conserve their water. That is why they are allowed to stay in business during a water shortage. They use seventy gallons of water per car during their complete car wash cycle. Four gallons of water is used during the pre-wash cycle. Sixty-six gallons of water is used during the soap/rinse cycle. Nearly two-thirds of the soap/rinse cycle water can be recycled. These approximately forty-four gallons of water are captured in a 10,000 gallon storage tank where they are used over again for car washes for the next three days. This dirty water is mixed with white sudsy soap and used during the car wash soap cycle. The average fixed site car wash uses four gallons (pre-wash) plus twenty-two gallons (sixty-six divided by two-thirds that is recycled) in the soap/rinse cycle bringing the total to twenty-six gallons of water per car. In the car washing industry this constitutes extreme efficiency.
If you are extremely careful with your water usage during your fundraiser, you can beat even the best recycling car wash which still uses around fifteen gallons of water per car. And some self-serve car washes claim they use as little as 6.2 gallons of water per car.
Remember the techniques discussed in this book:
Block Off Storm Drains
Utilize Efficient Equipment
Use Bio-Degradable/Non-Hazardous Soaps
Remove Trash From Wash Area When Finished
"If we all do a little, it will help a lot."
For more information on water conservation, please feel free to contact the public relations department of:
Metropolitan Water District
P.O. Box 54153
Los Angeles, CA 90054-0153
Cal Fed Program
8:00am – 5:00pm (916) 657-2666
Hotline (916) 654-9924
Department of Water and Power (DWP)
Energy, Efficiency and Conservation Hotline
(800) 827-5397
The ICA-International Car Wash Association went on to in Part IV of their plan to do even more to limit car wash fundraisers and our rights to wash our own cars in our driveway. Below is more of their plan:
Part 4: Legislative Monitoring
During its work together, the Task Force identified many additional topics as possible areas for research and program development. These included:
1) Expectations of regulatory agencies
2) Health and safety in the car wash industry
- a) OSHA
- b) Risk management
3) Charity car washing
4) Home car washing
5) Legislative monitoring
6) Chemicals Based on the resources available to the Association and the findings to be provided by other parts of the Association's environmental strategy, the Board identified legislative monitoring as the best tactic to complement the other programs included in the three-year plan. Monitoring will most likely be conducted on a national level, although assistance at the regional and state level may be possible.
As an addendum to the Association's overall environmental strategy, the International Carwash Association will seek to establish public-private partnerships on an ongoing basis. The purpose of this is to gain wider understanding and credibility from these groups with regards to car washing and the environment, and to help build the perception among the public and regulatory agencies that the car wash industry, as well as the Association, is working on behalf of the environment. The Association will also work and communicate with regional, state and local car wash associations, as well as allied associations like the American Water Works Association, to ensure the success of these programs.
Next Steps
The Board of Directors adopted its four-point, three-year environmental strategy on August 17, 2000. Working with water conservation consultant Chris Brown, the Board is currently developing an implementation schedule and budget. The first steps of implementing this three-year plan are expected to take place in October 2000.
The ICA is looking for allies to co-promote with, such as water conservation groups, who they plan to educate and to have a strong lobbying arm as well. Also to PR the crap out of their plans. This way they can limit the consumers to choices to wash their car. They hate mobile washers. This whole thing reminds me of a cartoon I once saw where a freeway was detoured through a car wash and the operators made out like bandits. Maybe that will be their ten year strategy once they make it against the law to wash your own car in your own drive way. Maybe consumers will be mislead by this propaganda and not complain similar to the frog who is slowly boiled in a pot and refuses to jump out while he can?
So who is behind this devious plan to kill our rights to wash our own cars?
The International Carwash Association Task Force on Environmental Strategies. Along with Chairman Bill Sartor. The group represents a wide cross-section of car wash industry professionals, including:
Corey Campbell, Puget Sound Car Wash Association;
Bill Bascom, past president, Mid-Atlantic Carwash Association;
Randy Coleman, Jim Coleman Co.; Steve Davis, Ryko Manufacturing, Co.;
Bob Katseff, New England Carwash Association;
Coy Lundblom, Western Carwash Association;
Brad Pavlak, Ohio Car Wash Association.
Enemies of the people? No not really, just greedy businessmen going one step further and trying to justify their actions. It started out as a relatively honest endeavor but has now prostituted itself as more members of the car washing industry jump on board. This is unacceptable and I think the World ought to know the truth. I think we should be the ones to tell them.
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