ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL

BOARD

December 18,

1975

ELMHURST COUNTRY CLUB,

)

Petitioner,

v.

)

PCB 75—76

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY,

)

)

Respondent.

MR. LAWRENCE X. PUSATERI, appeared on behalf of the Petitioner;

MR. JOHN T. BERNBOM, appeared on behalf of the Respondent.

OPINION AND ORDER OF THE BOARD

(by Mr.

Dumelle):

On February

T,

1975, Petitioner Elmhurst Country Club filed

with the Illinois Pollution Control Board

(Board)

a “Motion To

Re-Open” PCB 74-354.

That previous Opinion and Order of the

Board denied Petitioner’s September

30, 1974 petition for variance.

The Board, while denying Petitioner’s motion to re-open,

construed

that motion as a new petition for variance.

The Illinois Environ-

mental Protection Agency

(Agency)

filed its recommendation on

March 10,

1975.

A hearing was held on April

2,

1975.

More than seven months elapsed between the hearing date in April

and the time Petitioner delivered copies of the transcript to the

Board on November

12,

1975.

Petitioner had filed a waiver of the right

to a decision within 90-day

(that right had already been waived by

operation of Rule 410 of the Board’s Procedural Rules).

Petitioner

has not explained this extraordinary delay in presenting copies

of the transcript to the Board.

Such delay causes the Board

to seriously question the presence of good faith on the part of

Petitioner.

The net effect of the extraordinary delay has been to

prevent this Board from rendering its decision until almost the

time that Petitioner has stated as the latest possible date of

compliance, and four months after the anticipated compliance

date.

The Board is thus asked to render a decision on Petitioner’s

variance request more than eight months after the hearing.

The

Board is asked to grant this variance without any information

whatsoever as to the progress of’Petitioner’s alleged efforts

to control its discharges into Salt Creek, and its alleged

efforts

to construct a sewer connection to the Addison Sewage

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474

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Treatment Plant.

Petitioner was to have completed these projects

by mid—summer of 1975.

It is now winter.

The Board has received

no information on these projects since the testimony given on

April 2,

1975.

The Board’s Procedural Rule 410 clearly states

it is Petitioner’s

responsibility to furnish the Board with transcripts within 15 days

of the hearings.

Given the unexplained

7 month delay, Petiti~ner

should have at the very least submitted an explanation of

both the delay and its progress towards compliance.

The Board finds that, due to Petitioner’s unreasonable delay,

it is faced with a situation analagous to mootness.

The Board

has no way of knowing whether Petitioner has been acting in

good faith in its compliance program for these past eight months.

Normally, if such a variance were granted the Board would impose

conditions on Petitioner regarding the operation of its waste

treatment system and a timetable for the completion of various

stages of construction and modification.

Here the Board has no

way to determine whether or not such conditions would be moot.

The unreasonable seven month delay, being unexplained by

Petitioner, places upon Petitioner the additional burden of

setting forth the details of its alleged compliance efforts. for

the period of the delay.

Therefore, the Board finds that Petitioner

has failed to present facts sufficient to support its petition

for variance.

This Opinion constitutes the Board’s findings of fact and

conclusions of law.

Mr.

Young abstains.

ORDER

The Board hereby denies the Petition for Variance.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

I, Christan L.

Moffett, Clerk of the Illinois Pollution Control

Board,

hereby certify the above Opinion and Order were adopted on the

~

day of December,

1975 by a vote of

.3-~

Illinois Pollution

trol Board

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