Parking Lot & Garage Power Washing in NYC

Parking is the highest-risk surface we clean from a discharge standpoint, because the contaminant is petroleum and the surface drains straight to a catch basin. This is the category where cutting the containment corner is most likely to become someone’s problem.

• Nothing but stormwater to a catch basin – Title 15 RCNY 19-02 permits only stormwater or allowable runoff into a City storm sewer. A lot or a garage deck is engineered to move water to a drain, so containment and recovery have to be set before the first pass, not improvised when the water starts running.
• Oil-laden water is specifically excluded – Title 15 RCNY 19-03 excludes fats, oils and grease along with waste, motor and heating oil and diesel from the combined and sanitary sewers, caps non-polar material at 50 mg/L, requires pH between 5.0 and 12.0, and prohibits wastewater above 150 degrees Fahrenheit. Degreasing a lot produces exactly the water this rule is written about.
• Where it ends up – DEP reports that roughly 60 percent of the city sits on a combined sewer system, where heavy rain can carry a mix of stormwater and untreated sewage into the waterways. In the separately sewered remainder, a catch basin discharges to a waterbody with no treatment at all.
• What does not apply – An ordinary commercial parking lot is generally not an industrial activity under 40 CFR 122.26(b)(14) and does not need its own stormwater permit. If your lot serves a facility that does hold SPDES Multi-Sector General Permit coverage under GP-0-23-001, the facility’s SWPPP governs and we work to it.
• Accessible parking surfaces – Section 302.1 of the 2010 ADA Standards requires ground surfaces on an accessible route to be stable, firm and slip resistant, with no minimum coefficient of friction set. Clearing oil film and tire residue restores traction on a surface that already complies, which is a different claim from certifying it.
• The abutting sidewalk – Where a lot fronts a public way, Administrative Code 16-118 requires the sidewalk and the first eighteen inches of roadway to be kept free of refuse, and Administrative Code 7-210 puts civil liability for a poorly maintained sidewalk on the owner.
• Winter residue – Chloride residue from de-icing is corrosive to concrete and to vehicles, and it is worth clearing in spring rather than letting it work into the surface through another cycle.
• Insurance and documentation – Certificates of insurance naming your entity are issued before the first visit. New York employers carry workers’ compensation under Workers’ Compensation Law sections 2 and 3 and disability and paid family leave coverage under section 202.

Ask any parking contractor a single question: where does the water go. If the answer is the drain, you now own that decision, because the property is what an inspector traces the discharge back to.