ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
May 18, 1995
AMOCO OIL COMPANY,
)
Petitioner,
)
v.
)
PCB 95—145
(Provisional Variance—Air)
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)), Amoco Oil Company (Amoco) has
requested that the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency
(Agency) recommend that the Board grant a provisional variance to
allow Amoco’s gasoline dispensing operation (service station) to
continue operating even though it did not install operational
vapor recovery equipment by May 15, 1995. This provisional
variance is being requested because the Woodridge station will be
demolished and rebuilt after receipt of a needed zoning variance
from the Village of Woodridge, which Amoco expects to receive on
May 25, 1995. This request for a provisional variance and the
Notification of Recommendation was filed with the Board by the
Agency on Tuesday, May 16, 1995. Pursuant to Section 35(b) of
the Act, the Board must issue the variance within two (2) days of
this filing.
Specifically, the Agency recommends that we grant Amoco a
ten (10)-day provisional variance for its facility located at
Route 53 and Hobson Rd, Woodridge, DuPage County in the Chicago
metropolitan statistical area from the Stage II vapor recovery
requirements, as set forth in 35 Ill. Adm. Code 218.586, for the
period beginning May 16, 1995 and continuing for ten (10)—days or
until the required vapor recovery equipment is installed,
whichever comes first.
This recommendation is essentially that the Board extend a
previously-granted forty-five (45)-day provisional variance that
expired May 15, 1995. The docket number of the previous
provisional variance was PCB 95—130, granted on April 20, 1995.
That prior provisional variance was itself an extension of the
2
variance granted on January 11, 1995 in PCB 94-263.’
Upon receipt of the request, the Agency issued its
recommendation, notifying the Board that the failure to grant the
requested ten (10)—day provisional variance would impose 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 notifying the
Board 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 218.586,
subject to the following conditions:
1. The term of this provisional variance shall commence on
May 16, 1995 and continue for ten (10)-days or until the
required vapor recovery equipment is installed, whichever
comes first.
2. In addition, Amoco, as it states in its request, will
not dispense gasoline at either of these operations if the
National Weather Service indicates that the temperature for
Section 36(c) of the Act imposes limitations on the
Board’s ability to extend a provisional variance:
Any provisional variance granted by the Board pursuant
to subsection (b) of Section 35 shall be for a period
of time not to exceed 45 days. Upon receipt of a
recommendation from the Agency to extend this time
period, the Board shall grant up to an additional 45
days. The provisional variances granted to any one
person shall not exceed a total of 90 days during any
calendar year.
Since the variance granted in PCB 95-130 expired May 15, 1995,
and fewer than ninety (90) days of variance will have elapsed in
this calendar year by the expiration of the variance requested in
the present petition, the Board interprets Section 36(c) as
allowing Amoco the Agency—recommended ten (10)—day extension.
3
the following day will be above 88°F. Amoco will notify
Mr. Terry Sweitzer, or his designee, by telephone at
217/782-1733 should this action be necessary.
3. The petitioner shall notify the Agency upon
installation of the Stage II gasoline vapor recovery
equipment, by sending notification addressed as follows:
Mr. Terry Sweitzer, P.E.
Manager, Air Monitoring Section
Illinois Environmental Protection Agency
Division of Air Pollution Control
P.O. Box 19276
Springfield, Illinois 62794—9276
4. Amoco will cease dispensing gasoline at the Woodridge
gasoline dispensing operation after May 25, 1995, if Stage II
vapor recovery has not been installed.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
I, Dorothy M. Gunn, Clerk of the Illinois Pollution Control
Boar
hereby certify that the above order was adopted on the
/ ‘~
day of
__________________________,
1995, by a vote of
:0
(7
I
Control Board