By CARS of WI

Effective for your 2024 CARS OF WI membership dues you will only see your due fees on the invoice, you will not see WICAR dues on this invoice. All audits and billing will be done through the auditor of your choice. This is being done so that our members have the freedom to choose and to take the middle man out of it.

WICAR was a program set up to go hand in hand with ARA CAR standards and as time has went on those standards with WICAR did not keep pace with ARA CAR, as they are ever evolving, to keep pace with government regulations such as OSHA, EPA, DNR etc (that involved everything from safety protocols, dismantling/crushing procedures, oil/refrigerant/battery/tire storage and disposal as a few examples) it added protocols to make the salvage industry as a whole more uniform across the board in expectations of the quality of parts you send and receive and the overall appearance of facilities and areas to help salvage yards. The goal is to help yards have a standard program that if they are ever audited by OSHA, DNR, EPA etc that they have a program set in place to mitigate compliance issues.

Dave Kendziorski has resigned from the WICAR program and it is no longer considered a program. The board is promoting going with the ARA CAR standards with any state specific standards added in or suggested by your auditor. The ARA CAR standards can be found at https://aracertification.com/. When you look at it you can be CARS certified without being Recall, Gold Seal, or HVV certified. On this website are also free resources for safety, fluid removal, and cutting torch protocols.

The ARA CAR program is set up to be a self audit on some years with a 3rd party audit every 3 years, which is coming up in 2024. Typically these audits can be done hand in hand with your stormwater audit as some of the information pertains to both. As of the publishing of this article here is the suggested list published by ARA for professional environmental auditors that are approved for ARA CAR audits, do stormwater audits, and have a service area in WI:

JAK Environmental, LLC Jonathan Kusowski 1927 Mohave Ct. Grafton, WI 53024 (419) 410-7687 jakenvironmental@gmail.com

James Environmental Management, Inc. Adriana/Alex Lee P.O. Box 1323 Georgetown, TX 78627 info@jamesenvironmental.com (512) 244-3631 www.jamesenvironmental.com

VET Environmental Engineering, LLC Elizabeth Grubb 2335 West Fountain Dr. Bloomington, IN 47404 elizabeth@vet-env.com (812) 822-0400

Each facility will have their own pricing as to what they charge for audits so please contact them directly, sooner rather than later as it is the beginning of the stormwater compliance year (July 1 - June 30) and auditors are setting their schedules. If you are interested in being ARA CAR certified please contact Sany Blalock at 571-208-0428. There are many environmental programs that will do stormwater audits in WI and you are free to choose whomever you want to do that audit. The list above is the ones that do stormwater and ARA CARS certification audits. If you have any questions please feel free to contact your board members.