In the News

Commercial Car Washes Conserve Water
date posted: December 22 2005

Lake Tahoe Report #98
Dec. 27, 2004
By John Cobourn and Heather Segale

Many people are surprised to learn that washing their own cars at home can have adverse environmental impacts. If wash- or rinse-water runs down into street drains, it almost always carries pollutants into a nearby stream or lake. Street drains are designed to remove rain and snowmelt runoff from the right-of-way. These drains normally carry the water, untreated, to the nearest stream.

Do-it-yourself car washers also use as much as 200 gallons of water if they leave the hose running and up to 60 gallons of water if they use an automatic shut-off nozzle. This kind of water use puts a strain on our drinking water supply system, especially during periods of drought, such as we are experiencing now.

In some communities, charitable fundraising car washes have been outlawed, because they often are conducted in parking lots, where the wastewater simply runs into the storm drain system. Again, storm drains usually empty right into the nearest water body.

Most professional car washes filter their water and reuse it, which conserves water. Professional car washes use an average of 32 gallons of water per vehicle. Throughout the Tahoe Basin, car washes also discharge their contaminated wastewater into the sanitary sewer system, where pollutants are removed in wastewater treatment plants, and the effluent is pumped out of the basin.

Soaps and wastewater from home or mobile car washes can deposit oil, anti-freeze, grease, degreasers, fuel, nutrients, heavy metals, and suspended solids into local lakes and rivers. Even biodegradable and low-phosphate soaps and detergents are not toxin-free.

The Cross Roads Car Wash in Truckee has installed a sophisticated Frytech water recycling system. Based on stringent European standards for car wash effluent, the Cross Roads system cleans water similarly to the way nature cleans water in a stream. The water circulates 24 hours a day, and it is constantly aerated and filtered. The sand and dirt particles settle in the first tank, and small particles (down to five microns) are removed by a self-cleaning filtration system. By adding air into the circulating water, anaerobic bacteria are destroyed. The system also uses natural enzymes instead of chlorine to kill the aerobic bacteria.

“The benefit of my reclaimed water system is that I am able to reclaim 80 to 90 percent of the water the tunnel bay consumes,” says Mark Lowenstern, owner of the Cross Roads Car Wash. “I save about 40 to 60 gallons of water per car (depending on the size of the car), and the only water that is fresh is the wax spray and final rinse. The quality of the wash is just as good as using all fresh water.”

Lowenstern purchased his water reclamation system from a European company and put the entire system together himself. It uses only about 13 gallons of city water per vehicle. “The reason I decided to go with this system is because we all live in a beautiful alpine environment, and I want my family to enjoy our beautiful surroundings,” he says. “I can do my part by conserving water and providing an opportunity for customers to know they are keeping their community clean.”

The Cross Roads Car Wash is located on Deerfield Drive next to McDonald’s in Truckee. The car wash offers both an exterior soft-cloth tunnel bay and self-serve bays. For more information, contact Cross Roads, (530) 587-5751.