ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
July 31, 1973
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DANVILLE SANITARY DISTRICT
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)
)
v.
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PCB 73-77
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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
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OPINION AND ORDER OF THE BOARD (by Mr. Dumelle)
Petition was filed February
23,
1973 by the Danville Sanitary
District (“District”) for variance from Rules 404(c) and
404(f)
and 602(d)3 of the Water Pollution Regulations, until August 1, 1976
and also requesting an order of the Board be issued requiring the
District to abate all pollutional discharges from its present plant.
The Agency filed its recommendation on April 16, 1973 stating
that the relief requested is from Rules 404(c), 404(f), 602(d) (1)
and implicitly from Rules 921(d) and 1002. It recommended a grant
as to Rule 921(d) and denial for the other requests unless certain
proofs were made.
Public hearing was held in Danville on April 30 and May 1
of 1973.
On June 28 the Board repealed Rule 921(d). On July 19 the
Board enacted Rule 409 which extends the deadline for the District
from December 31, 1973 to December 31, 1974 for meeting the effluent
standards of Rule 404(c). Thus the instant petition is moot with
respect to these two Rules.
Rule 404(f) is the effluent standard where dilution ratios
are less than 1:1. Since the low flow of the Vermilion River is
given as 20.8 cfs (13.9 MGD) and the most recent average dry weather
flows to the plant were 8.646 MGD and 8.934
MGD
in February and
March, 1973 respectively (District Ex. 16) it can be seen that the
1:1 ratio will not be breached for sometime. Thus any violation of
Rule 404(f) is far off in the future and need not be considered
in this proceeding.
Rules 602(d) (3) and 602(d) (1) are left for consideration. These
are deadlines for storm water treatment and are respectively,
December 31, 1975, and “the applicable date for improvement of treat-
ment works” (which is now December 31, 1974). Taking even the
8—671
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earliest of these two dates would still put the prospective violation
beyond the 12-month variance grant power of the Board and these
requests are thus premature. We are then left with Rule 1002 for
consideration. Since nothing is now before us (because of mootness
or prematurity) no variance is needed from the deadline dates for
filing of a Project Completion Schedule.
The petition in this case was well drawn and helpful and the
Agency’s recommendation was thorough. I-lad it been necessary to
decide this case upon its merits we would have commended the District
upon its good faith efforts to determine its waste treatment problems
and to correct them. We would urge that in future proceedings, the
District (and, if possible, the Agency) perform biological samplings
on the Vermilion River bottom to determine the effects
of
the susp—
pended solids discharges from the sewage plant. This seems
not
to
have been done.
Two matters remain.
First, the District argues in its brief
that the variance should be granted as a matter of law because without
it
the I)istrict could not ever get a Federal grant.
We do not
accept this argument for to do so would largely render this Board’s
judgments perfunctory in cases involving Federal grants. The entire
Federal grant system is still evolving under the new Act passed
October 18, 1972 with guidelines being newly issued and newly
litigated and we think no one can really delineate at this time
exactly the relationship between State actions and eligibility
resulting therefrom for Federal grants.
Furthermore there has
been no showing in this case that failure to grant the variance is
in fact holding up a Federal grant.
If a genuine showing is made
of
this point we would consider it.
Second, the petitioner
asks for a Board order to abate its
pollutional discharges from its existing plant.
Such an order would
trigger Section 46 of the Environmental Protection Act and permit
issuance of bonds by the District without referendum.
We do not
issue such an order at this time because of two reasons; prematurity
and scope-of-the-project
questions.
We have found that the applicable
deadline is 17 months off and so no pressing time problems would
appear to be present.
A genuine professional disagreement between the
Agency and the District seems to exist on the necessity for carbon
columns (R. 243).
If carbon columns are not needed, then the total
project cost is reduced $3,000,000. The
District taxpayers, if their
share works out to 20,
would be saved $600,000 plus the entire annual
operating charge. We would suggest this engineering matter be
worked
out by the parties as soon as possible.
The variance is dismissed without pi.ejudice as being moot
or premature.
IT
IS SO ORDERED.
8
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672
I, Christan L. Moffett, Clerk of the Illinois Pollution Control
Board, hereby certify the above Opinion and Order were adopted on the
~
day of July, 1973 by a vote of
~—O
IllinoisC
ristan
PollutionL.
Moffett,
71)
~
rolrk Board
8—673