ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL
BOARD
July g,
1981
CITIZENS FOR A BETTER ENVIRONMENT, ET AL
•,
)
)
Complainants,
)
v.
)
PCB
80—178
)
GENERAL
IRON INDUSTRIES, INC.,
)
)
Respondent.
MR.
ROBERT
GOLDSMITH
APPEARED
ON
BEHALf
OF COMPLAINMT.
tIR.
ROBERT
3.
LIFTON,
BILANDIC,
NEISTEIN,
RICHMM, IIAUSLINGER &
YOUNG,
APPEARED
ON
BEHALF
OF
THE
RESPONDENT.
OPINION
AND
ORDER
OF
THE
BOARD
(by
I.
Goodman):
On
October
1,
1980
Citizens
for
a
Better
Environment
(CBE)
filed this complaint against General Iron Industries, Inc.
(General
Iron),
alleging violations of Sections 9(a) and 9(0) of the tilinots
Environmental Protection Act
(Act) and Rules 102 and 502(a) of
Chapter 2 of the Board’s regulations concerning air pollution.
Hearing was held on May 22, 1981, at which the parties presented
a stipulation of facts and proposal for settlement for the Boards
consideration pursuant to Rule 331 of the Board’s Procedural Rules.
Testimony as to the
proposed
settlement was heard from
one citisen
witness.
The Board has received no written public comment in this
matter.
There are a number of legal and procedural deficiencies tn
the proposed settlement agreement as presented to the Board.
The
most obvious problem
is
the fact that the proposed stipulation
contains conditions referring to and
I.e signed by five citizens
who are
not parties to this proceeding.
However, on
review
of the
situation presented by this case, the floard has determined that
acceptance of the proposed settlement agreement would be the
most
reasonable resolution of the environmental problem presented
theroin and that no person would be prejudiced by such acceptance.
The Board shall, therefore, on its own
motion, correct certain
deficiencies and waive all of the defects contained in
the
proposati
settlement and accept the settlement as the resolution of this
matter.
The problem here occurred, as was cited in the stipulation o~
facts, when General Iron accumulated several large piles of oily
machine shop turnings at its Magnolia Street facility in antici-
pation of processing and selling them to Wisconsin Steel Company~
43—1
2
Wisconsin Steel Company subsequently shut down its foundry and
General Iron found itself unable to move the turnings out of the
facility.
Subsequently, due to spontaneous combustion or to other
unknown reasons,
the piles of oily turnings began burning and
continued to burn notwithstanding numerous attempts by the Chicago
Fire Department to extinguish the fires.
General Iron thereafter
purchased fire hoses with which
it has continuously applied water
to the piles of scrap
in order to prevent and retard combustion.
During the initial period of uncontrolled burning, certain indivi-
duals in the area complained to CBE concerning the smoke and odor.
The result was the instant complaint filed by CBE, apparently on
behalf of the complaining citizens.
In the proposed settlement agreement the parties agree
that
this action shall be dismissed without prejudice in consideration
of certain future rights and duties of the parties with respect
to the pollution problem.
General Iron agrees to refrain from
storing combustible oil—coated machine shop turnings
in the
futurt~
and to use its best efforts to sell and remove all such turnings
presently located at the Magnolia facility while continuing to
apply water to the existing piles for the purpose of retarding
combustion.
CBE and the residents agree not to pursue this
matter
so long as General Iron fulfills
its
duties under
the
proposed
stipulation and agree that no fine or other monetary payments
need be made by General Iron in connection with
this
action,
The
rights and duties as contained in
the
proposed
settlement agreenent
are recited in considerable detail: however,
the
foregoing
is
a
fair summary of its terms.
The Board finds that,
notwithstanding the
legal and technic~i
deficiencies in the proposed settlement
agreement,
the
settlement
agreement constitutes
a fair and reasonable resolution
of
the
problem, particularly
considering the inadvertent nature of
the
source of the pollution and
the
likelihood that
it
will not recurs
The Board will therefore accept
the
proposed settlement agreement
and dismiss the action herein without prejudice, but will
order
the parties to execute their duties under the agreement~ To
this
end the Board joins all nonparties who executed
the
stipulation
and the settlement agreement.
This Opinion constitutes
the findings of fact and conclusions
of law of the Board in
this
matter,
OflDE~
1.
The following named persons are hereby
joined
as
complaining parties to this action pursuant to Procedural ~ule
303(c):
Joseph
L.
Strumidlowskie,
1506 N. El~tonAvenue, Chicago,
Illinois; Anne Brennan,
1269 W. LeMoyne Street, Chicago,
Illinois;
John T. Woltjen,
1507
N. Elston Avenue, Chicago, Illinois~
Bonnie Foley,
1507 N. Elston Avenue, Chicago,
Illinois: and Sam
Delgado,
1524 N. Throop, Chicago,
Illinois.
43—8
3
2.
General Iron Industries,
Inc.,
Citizens for a Better
Environment,
and the five persons named in Paragraph
1 above shall
execute their duties pursuant to the settlement agreement filed
before the Board on April
17,
1981, which settlement agreement is
hereby incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein.
3.
The complaint is hereby dismissed without prejudice.
IT
IS SO ORDERED.
Mr. Anderson abstained.
I, Christan L.
Moffett, Clerk of the Illinois Pollution
Control board,
hereby certify that the above Opinion and Order
was adopt~don the
d(
~
day of
~
,
1981 by a
vote of
~frO
.
•)
~)
(
j/~~
~
!~)~1/
~ChristanL.
Moffett’,~’94~erk
Illinois Pollution ~ot~trolBoard
43—9