Sauros Cleanerama Tacoma

Ecology conducts periodic reviews about every 5 years at this site because there was contamination left behind after the interim action.

The 2026 draft periodic review found that while the cleanup action is protective of human health and the environment, data suggest that groundwater might not reach cleanup levels in the expected timeline. Therefore, more cleanup might be needed in the future at this site.

The City, in coordination with Ecology will:

• Implement institutional controls, called administrative procedures, to make sure any future redevelopment at the site is done safely.
• Continue groundwater monitoring.
• Conduct a vapor intrusion evaluation for an underground parking garage on the site. The evaluation will look into the possibility of contaminated vapor entering air in underground garage from nearby contaminated soil and groundwater.
• Analyze if the site needs more monitoring wells to better define where the groundwater is contaminated.

Ecology will hold a public comment period before finalizing the 2026 periodic review. The next periodic review will be in about 5 years.

Sauro’s Cleanerama, a dry-cleaning business, was located at 1401, 1407, and 1409 Pacific Avenue, in downtown Tacoma. During operations, Sauro’s used a wastewater drainage pit (called a sump) in the basement. Over time, dry cleaning solvents leaked from this sump into soil and groundwater on the Sauro’s property and underneath other nearby properties, creating a groundwater contamination plume.

The boundary of the cleanup site includes areas that this groundwater plume spread under, which includes public parking lots, roads, and City of Tacoma (City) rights-of-way. The Sauro’s property is currently used as a public parking lot.

Between 1887 and 1958, numerous businesses operated at the former Sauro’s property including a hotel, office/retail shops, bus terminal where buses were parked and maintained, laundry operations, electroplating company, farm implement and seed store, church, jeweler, barber, tailor/clothes cleaner, and possibly a hatter.

Between 1961 and 2000, Sauro’s Cleanerama operated on the property. After the dry-cleaning business closed, the property remained vacant until 2011, when the City began using the property as a public parking lot.

In 2009, the City bought the former Sauro’s property and signed an agreed order with Ecology to investigate the site. The City completed a partial cleanup (called an interim action) in 2010. This included a lot-line-to-lot-line excavation of approximately 12,700 tons of contaminated soil and debris and backfilling the excavation with clean material.

Tetrachloroethene (PCE), a dry-cleaning chemical, and its breakdown products are present in groundwater. Specific breakdown products present include: trichloroethene (TCE), cis-1,2-dichloroethene (cis-1,2-DCE) and vinyl chloride.

In 2015, Ecology and the City signed a second agreed order to develop a cleanup action plan and to address contaminated groundwater by:

1. Monitored natural attenuation. Natural attenuation means reduction in the amount of contamination through natural breakdown processes. Monitoring groundwater once a year helps show whether this reduction is happening in the expected timeframe.
2. Institutional controls. These are restrictions on activities that could interfere with the cleanup or could expose humans and wildlife to contamination. The City recorded an environmental covenant for the former Sauro’s property in 2015.