ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
    September 1, 1994
    DEPARTMENT OF THE
    ARMY,
    )
    ROCK ISLAND DISTRICT,
    )
    CORPS OF ENGINEERS,
    )
    Petitioner,
    v.
    )
    PCB 94—239
    (Provisional Variance)
    ILLINOIS ENVIRONMENTAL
    )
    PROTECTION AGENCY,
    )
    Respondent.
    ORDER OF THE BOARD (by C. A. Manning):
    Pursuant to Section 35(b) of the Environmental Protection
    Act (Act) (415 ILCS 5/35(b)), Department of the Army, Rock Island
    District, Corps of Engineers (Corps of Engineers) has requested
    that the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (Agency)
    recommend that the Board grant a provisional variance to allow
    the Corps of Engineers to continue operating during a period of
    rehabilitation work on eleven (11) uplift pressure relief wells.
    Such request for a provisional variance and the Notification of
    Recommendation were filed with the Board by the Agency on
    Wednesday, August 31, 1994. Pursuant to Section 35(b) of the
    Act, the Board must issue the variance within two (2) days of
    this filing.
    Pursuant to Section 35(b) of the Environmental Protection
    Act (Act) (415 ILCS 5/35(b)), the Illinois Environmental
    Protection Agency (Agency), by and through its Director, Mary A.
    Gade, seeks a provisional variance for Corps of Engineers in
    order to allow it to continue operating during a period of flood
    protection system rehabilitation.
    Specifically, the Agency recommends that we grant the Corps
    of Engineers a (forty-five) 45 day provisional variance for its
    Hancock, Adams, and Pike Counties facilities from the iron,
    sulfate and manganese effluent requirements, as set forth in 35
    Ill. Adm. Code 302.208 and 304.124 for the period from when the
    petitioner begins rehabilitating its flood protection system, by
    discharging from the first uplift pressure relief well, and
    continuing until the petitioner returns the eleven (11) units to
    service, but not for longer than 45 days.
    The areas involved in this variance are:
    a. Hunt Drainage District located in Hancock County,
    Illinois with two (2) relief wells which discharge
    into the Mississippi River.
    2
    b. Lima Lake Drainage District located in Adams
    County, Illinois with two (2) relief wells which
    discharge into Bear Creek Diversion Channel, which
    discharge into Canton Chute and in turn discharge
    into the Mississippi River.
    C.
    Indian Grove Drainage District located in Adams
    County, Illinois with five (5) relief wells which
    discharge into the Mississippi River.
    d. Sny Island Levee and Drainage District located in
    Pike County, Illinois with two (2) relief wells
    which discharge into the Mississippi River.
    The Agency recommends that the Board grant the requested
    provisional variance with specified conditions. The Agency
    agrees that the repairs are necessary. The Agency anticipates
    that the requested provisional variance would have minimal
    environmental impact on the receiving stream. The Agency is
    unaware of any public water supplies that the requested
    provisional variance would adversely impact. The Agency
    maintains that a grant of a provisional variance would violate no
    federal laws. The Agency finds that a denial of the requested
    provisional variance would create an arbitrary or unreasonable
    hardship on the petitioner.
    Provisional variances are by their very nature temporary.
    The responsibilities of the Agency and the Board in these short-
    term provisional variances are different from the
    responsibilities in standard variances.
    (~
    415 ILCS 5/35 (b) &
    36(c)). In provisional variances it is the responsibility of the
    Agency to make the technical determinations and finding of
    arbitrary or unreasonable hardship. The Board’s responsibility
    is to adopt a formal order, to assure the formal maintenance of
    the record, to assure the enforceability of the variance, and to
    provide notification of the action by a press release.
    Having received the Agency recommendation finding that a
    denial of the requested relief would impose an arbitrary or
    unreasonable hardship, the Board hereby grants the petitioner a
    provisional variance from 35 Ill. Adm. Code 302.208 and 304.124,
    on the following conditions:
    1. The term of this provisional variance shall commence
    when the petitioner, Corps of Engineers
    ,
    initiates
    rehabilitation to its uplift pressure relief wells, by
    discharging from the first relief well, and it shall expire
    on the date the petitioner completes the required
    maintenance work, or after forty—five (45)-days have
    elapsed, whichever comes first;
    2. During the term of this provisional variance, the
    3
    effluent from the petitioner’s treatment plant shall not
    exceed concentrations of 32 mg/i chloride, 52 ing/l sulfate,
    33 mg/i total iron and 2.25 mg/l total manganese daily
    maximum limits;
    3. The petitioner shall notify mark T. Brooks of the
    Agency’s Compliance Assurance Section by telephone, at
    (217)782—9720, when the work on the relief wells begin in
    each drainage district and when the work is completed in
    each drainage district. The petitioner shall confirm this
    notice in writing within five (5) days, addressed as
    follows:
    Illinois Environmental Protection Agency
    Division of Water Pollution Control
    Compliance Assurance Section
    2200 Churchill Road
    P.O. Box 19276
    Springfield, Illinois 62794—9276
    Attention: Mark T. Books
    4. The petitioner shall perform the necessary
    rehabilitation work on the wells as expeditiously as
    possible; and
    5. The petitioner shall use the least amount of cleaning
    solution needed to perform the necessary work and shall
    document the dose rate used on each well.
    The petitioner shall execute a copy of a Certificate of
    Acceptance of this provisional variance and forward that copy to
    the Agency addressed as is the written notice required in the
    above condition; the petitioner shall forward that copy within
    ten (10) days of the date of this order of the Board, and the
    Certificate of Acceptance shall take the following form:
    4
    CERTIFICATION
    I (We),
    hereby accept and agree to be bound by all terms
    and conditions of the order of the Pollution
    Control Board in PCB 94-239
    ,
    September 1, 1994.
    Petitioner
    Authorized Agent
    Title
    Date
    IT IS SO ORDERED.
    I, Dorothy M. Gunn, Clerk of the Illinois Pollution Control
    Board, do hereby certify that the above order was adopted on the
    /.i_~~ day of __________________________, 1994, by a vote of
    ~~1
    IllinoisDorothy M.PollutionGu
    ,
    ClerkControl Board
    /~

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