ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD

January 6, 1972

FOREST PRESERVE DISTRICT

OF COOK COUNTY

v..

)

PCB 71—304

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

Mr. Arthur L. Janura and Mr. James H. Tyndall for Forest Preserve

District of Cook County

Mr. Nicholas G. Dozoryst II, for the Enivronmental Protection Agency

Opinion of the Board Aby Mr. Currie):

The Forest Preserve District asks a variance to permit

open burning of trees near Wheeling until July 1, 1972. We

grant the variance subject to several conditions, for reasons

given below.

Open burning was forbidden by the Air Pollution Control

Board in regulations adopted in 1965, but the burning of

diseased trees was exempted, presumably because of the absence

of satisfactory alternative means of preventing the spread of

plant diseases such as Dutch elm. The Environmental Protection

Act, in 1970, forbade all open burning of refuse except such as

might be authorized by Board regulations (section 9 (c)). The

relationship between the statutory ban and the old regulations

being less than clear, we held hearings on revised regulations,

which were finally adopted September 2, 1971. In the meantime

we entertained numerous petitions for variances from the strict

statutory ban, and our practice was to allow the burning of

diseased trees, on appropriately remote sites under appropriate

conditions, because of the need to stop the spread df disease.

E.g., City of Winchester v. EPA, 

70—37 (Feb. 8, 1971).

The new regulations (PCB Regs.., Ch. 3, Part IV) recognize

both the necessity for burning diseased trees (for reasons more

fully stated in the Board’s opinion, Open Burning Regulations,

#R 70-11, Sept. 2, 1971) and the impracticality of distinguishing

at the burning site between those that are and those that are

not infected with disease. For these reasons, and because of

the demonstrated lack of satisfactory alternatives for the

disposal of non—diseased wood, the regulation allows permits for

-~—

3?1

the burning of landscape wastes under certain conditions. The

Forest Preserve District has obtained such a permit for its

Palos Hills burning site, whi~~his not at issue in the present

case.

The regulations impose three conditions on the grant of

permits to burn landscape wastes. One is that by July 1, 1972

all such burning shall be conducted with the aid of an air-

curtain destructor or comparable device, which will virtually

eliminate smoke. The others are that the burning shall not take

place within 1000 feet of populated areas and that air—curtain

destructors are required at once within one mile of any

municipality of over 1000 persons, or within any municipality.

Rules 401(g), 404(a)(4). In short, the principle is that

burning cannot entirely be avoided; that air-curtain destructors

are to be used to minimize pollution; that in more remote areas

a grace period is allowed to permit orderly acquisition of such

devices; but that burning should be moved away from populated

areas until destructors can be obtained.

The propriety of the restriction on burning in populated

areas is affirmed by the evidence in the ~present case. The

District has been burning trees within one mile of Wheeling,

with homes not far away to both east and west. Despite attempts

to burn only when the wind is toward the north or northeast,

the neighbors have suffered:

The smoke that comes from the burning area, with open

burning, is intolerable, 

. . .

The smoke, the debris that

comes down from the air that covers my yard, my automobile,

covers my home, becomes an intolerable situation.

CR. 121—22.)

The District ~iasunable to get a permit for continued

open burning at Wheeling because the site is within one mile of

the municipality. It has obtained a permit forand installed an air-

curtain destructor, which at the hearing December 

was expected

to be in operation before the end of December, and thus presumably

is in use today. The District’s petition aske.d two things:

permission to burn in the open until the destructor was in operation,

and

permission to burn amounts in excess of the destructor’s

capacity thereafter. For the destructor’s capacity is estimated

at 80 tons per day, and this is less than one fifth of the peak

loads received at the Wheeling location.

The request to burn until installation of the destructor

should by now be moot, unless a complaint is later filed

challenging the District’s actions during that time; we see no

need to resolve now what may never be 

controversy, and thus

3

-~ 362

dismiss thatportion of the request as moot. Cf. National

Gypsum Co. v. EPA, # 71-99 (August 2, 1971). The important

issue is what to do about the trees the destructor cannot handle

from now to July.

The District is committed to terminating all non—destructor

burning by July 1.  It asks to be given two months in which to

evaluate the performance of its first destructo~before in-

vesting additional money (at $50,000 for each installation, since

these are large and permanent destructors) to thay others. It

also wishes to pursue the possibility’ of installing a sawmill

so that the larger logs, which take a long time to burn, can

be cut into useful lumber after removal of the infested outer

portions and then sold. Attempts are now being made to secure

a market for the product, which is said to be mostly elm wood

of relatively low value. The District testified that it has

been unable to find an alternative site for the burning outside

the restricted areas.

We think the District has made its case. While the Wheeling

site is clearly a bad place for open burning, we see no way in

which continued burning there can be avoided before the summer

of 1972 without creating a serious problem of trees that cannot

be disposed of. We cannot find that the District was wrong in

experimenting with a single destructor for a short period before

investing several hundred thousands of dollars to buy, half a

dozen of them. We cannot say it should have abandoned efforts

to find a solution far preferable to burning up the

wood in a destructor, namely, translating the refuse into a

useful product. Cf. Decker Sawmill, Inc. v. EPA, 

71-73 (July

8, 1971). Nor can we really say that all these actions should

have been taken years ago, we cannot buy the District’s conception

that “diseased” trees includes all dead trees because they are

obviously not in good health, but the truly diseased trees that

form a substantial part of the District’s problem were exempt

from the burning ban until 1970 and their status uncertain for

another year. Nor can we on the special facts of this case insist

that the District do what the regulation expects people to do

who have been burning inside restricted areas and who need time

to provide destructors: move the operation to a more remote

location. The District’s burning operation is an enormous one,

which not only takes care of the trees generated by the District

itself but also furnished a disposal service to many municipalities

and private contractors within the entire Cook. County area.

The entire metropolitan area is highly congested, and it has

proved difficult to find any preferable site for interim use.

Long transportation of trees beyond the metropolitan area

would not only be quite costly but would enlarge the risk of spread-

ing disease along the way. As we know from another case decided

today, City of Rockford v. EPA, # 71-311 (Jan. 6, 1972), the

process of obtaining permission to utilize a large new site for

any sort of refuse disposal can be extremely time—consuming,

3— 363

and we have no assurance that it could be accomplished in the present

case before the requested termination date of July 1. In short

this is an unusually large burning operation in an unusually

crowded area, and the possibilities of moving it are far less

than in the ordinary case.

One very attractive suggestion for an alternative to open

burning at Wheeling was made by a citizen witness: transporting

the trees the destructor cannot handle to the District’s own Palos

Hills site, which is mOre remote, where interim burning could

proceed with less adverse results. The District did not respond

to this suggestion. We shall require that the Palos Hills site

be used in preference to Wheeling to the extent practicable and

shall require that reports indicate the extent to which this

practice can avoid burning at Wheeling.

We cannot tell from the record whether or not the use of the

present destructor is limited to certain hours or days by the permit.

I.f so, we hereby grant a variance from such time conditions; the

destru.ctor should be utilized to the fullest practicable extent

to minimize the need for open burning.

In granting this variance we are entirely aware that open

burning at Wheeling is highly undesirable and must be brought

to an end as soon as practicable. The District has promised to

end it by July 1, 1972, and we expect to hold the District to

that promise.

ORDER

The Forest Preserve District of Cook County is hereby

granted a variance from the open burning regulations to permit

open burning of landscape wastes at its Wheeling site until

July 1, 1972, on the following conditions:

1. No waste shall he burned in the open except that which

is in excess of the capacity of the air curtain

destructor; and

2. To the extent practicable, waste beyond the capacity

of the destructor shall be burned at Palos Hills in

preference to Wheeling; and

3. No new fires may be ignited nor additions made to existing

fires except between 9 a.m. Monday and noon on Wednesday,

and all fires shall be completely extinguished by 6 p.m.

Friday of each week; and

4. The District shall continue its practice of limiting

open burning, to the extent practicable, to times when

wind conditions are such as to minimize the effect of

emissions on nearby populations; and

—

364

5. The residue from open burning shall be cooled with

water and deposited in an approved sanitary landfill

at least once a week; and

6. The District shall diligently pursue alternative methods

of disposing of landscape waste without open burning,

such as chipping, sawmilling, and additional air-curtain

destructors; shall inform the Agency and the Board no

later than March 1, 1972 of its decision as to which

method is to be employed; and shall cease open burning

without the aid of an approved device for reducing

emissions no later than July 1, 1972; and

7. The District shall submit monthly reports to the

Agency, beginning February 1, 1972, detailing the following:

a. The per hour operating capacity of the air

curtain destructor;

b. The amount of waste actually disposed of by

the air curtain destructor and the number of

hours it was operated each day;

c. The total daily amount of waste disposed of

by all of the burning;

d. The amounts of waste burned daily at the

Palos Hills site and the extent to which this

site is used and can be used to alleviate the

burning burden at Wheeling;

e. The progress toward achieving an alternative to

open burning.

Christan Moffett,    

Clerk of the Pollution Control Board,

certify that the Board adapted the above Opinion this 6th

day of January,

1972

by a vote

of 4-0.

—

3~5