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Illinois

Drycleaner Environmental Response Trust Fund (DERT Fund)

Agency Illinois Environmental Protection Agency

The Drycleaner Environmental Response Trust Fund (DERT Fund) was set up by the Illinois General Assembly in 1997, at the request of retail drycleaners, to pay toward cleaning up releases from drycleaning machines and solvent storage units. Since Public Act 101-400 took effect on July 1, 2020, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (Illinois EPA) has administered it: it licenses drycleaning facilities, runs the Fund's environmental liability coverage, and reviews cleanup and insurance claims. Since January 17, 2023 that work has been governed by Pollution Control Board rules at 35 Ill. Adm. Code 1501. The drycleaning industry pays for the Fund through license fees, a tax on each gallon of solvent bought, insurance premiums, and fees from inactive facilities that keep their eligibility.

In a Phase I ESA

ASTM E1527-21 does not name state drycleaner records among its standard record sources. In Illinois they still matter for a property that held a cleaner, or sits next to one.

  • Licenses. Illinois EPA says every retail drycleaning facility in the state must be licensed, for a calendar year, at a fee from $1,500 to $5,000 set by the solvent it bought the year before. The page sets its Licensed Drycleaner Roster under the heading Currently Licensed Drycleaners and does not say whether former licensees appear on it.
  • Cleanups paid in part by the Fund. Subject to available funding, the Fund repays approvable costs of cleaning up soil or groundwater contaminated by a drycleaning solvent release, after a deductible. The cleanup must run under the Site Remediation Program (SRP), to levels set under TACO. Illinois EPA counts over 500 No Further Remediation letters issued, with the Fund's help, to drycleaner sites since it began; the page, last modified January 9, 2026, does not date the count.
  • Two pages give different dates for eligible releases. The Fund's page lists, among the conditions for repayment, a release discovered on or after July 1, 1997. Illinois EPA's SRP page on dry cleaning facilities says the Fund's remedial action account helps pay for releases discovered from July 1, 1999 up to, but not including, July 1, 2004. The two pages disagree; read the rule if the date matters.
  • Insurance. An owner or operator can buy pollution coverage through Illinois EPA for current or future spills or leaks of drycleaning solvent. The Fund's page gives the price as $750 for each six-month policy period in one place and an annual premium of $1,500 in another, with up to $500,000 of cleanup coverage and a $10,000 deductible. A facility must have a site investigation the Fund finds adequate before it can be insured, so for an insured facility ask whether the file holds it.

Illinois EPA's SRP page on dry cleaning facilities lists the parts of a cleaner where hazardous chemicals may typically be present: process and storage areas, dumpsters and utility lines, floor cracks and entryways, piping, floor drains and sumps, the sewer line, and known or suspected spill areas. It names perchloroethylene (PCE), trichloroethylene (TCE) and other volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds as the usual contaminants.

Where to look a site up

Getting the file

Illinois EPA takes requests under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act through its online FOIA Request Web Form, which needs an account, or by fax, U.S. mail or special carrier. Give the facility name, address and any ID number you have. Fees, reply times and the options for large files are on the FOIA requests page.

Sources

Illinois Environmental Protection Agency pages, read October 13, 2026:

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