ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
November 21,
1984
CONCERNED
NEIGHBORS
FOR
A
)
BETTER
ENVIRONMENT,
)
Petitioner,
)
v.
)
PCI3
84—173
COUNTY
OF
ROCK
ISLAND
and
)
BROWNING—FERRIS
INDUSTRIES
OF
)
1O~A,
INC.,
Respondents.
ORDER
OF
THE BOARD
(by
3. D. Dumelle):
This
action
is
a
third
party
appeal
filed
pursuant
to
Section
40.1
~
of
the Environmental Protection Act
(Act)
(Ill.
Rev.
Stat.
ch..
111½, par. 1040.1(b)).
The Petitioners, Concerned
Neiqhbors
For A Better Environment,
an Illinois Not For Profit
Corporation
(CNBE),
appeal the October 16,
1984 decision of the
County
of
Rock Island
(County)
granting the application of
Respondent
Browning—Ferris Industries of
Iowa,
Inc.
(BFI)
for approval of
a
new
regional pollution control facility pursuant to Ill. Rev.
Stat.
1983,
ch.
111½, par. 1039.2.
The petition states that
“the
proposed facility is an expansion of an existing landfill,
the
expansion to receive municipal waste but no special waste.”
This appeal was timely filed on November
1, 1984.
As require~i
by Section 40.1(b) of the Act, the Board finds that this matter
should
proceed to hearing,
as the petition
a)
is not duplicitous
or
frivolous,
b)
indicates
that
petitioner
participated
in
the
County’s public hearing, and
C)
suggests
that
the
petitioners
members
may
be
so
located
as
to
be
potentially
affected
by
the
proposed facility.
Although the petition does not allege that
the petitioner or its members are located
so as to be affected by
the
facility, the Board will order that this matter proceed
to
hearing, at which time the petitioner will have an opportunity
to
establish this point.
SB 172,
as codified
in Section 40.1(a) of the Act, provides
that
the
hearing before the Board is to “be based exclusively on
the
record
before the county board.”
The statute does not specify
who is to file with the Board the record before the County or who
is
to
certify
to
the
completeness
or
correctness
of
the record.
As
the
County alone can verify and certify what exactly
is
the entire record before
it,
in the interest of protecting
the
61-215
2
rights of all parties to this action, and in order to satisfy the
intention of SB 172, the Board believes that the County must be
the party to prepare and file the record on appeal.
The Board
suggests that guidance in so doing can be had by reference to
Section 105.102(a)(4) of the Board’s Procedural Rules and to
Rules 321 through 324 of the Illinois Supreme Court Rules.
In
addition to the actual documents which comprise the record, the
Clerk of the County Board shall also prepare a document entitled
“Certificate of Record on Appeal” which shall
list the documents
comprising the record.
Seven copies of the certificate, seven
copies of the transcript, and three copies of any other documents
in
the record shall be filed with the Board.
A copy of the
certificate
shall be served upon the petitioner.
As these require-
ments have not previously been applied to the County of
Rock
Island,
its
Clerk is given 21 days from the date of this Order
to
“prepare, bind and certify the record on appeal”
(Ill. Supreme
Court, Rule
324).
Section 40.1(b)
provides that the petition shall be heard
“in accordance with the terms of” Section 40.1(a).
Section
40.1(a) provides that if there is no final action by the Board
within
90 days, petitioner may deem the site location approved.
The Board has construed the phrase “in accordance with the
terms
of”
in the context of Section 40(b) of the Act
(concerning
third-party appeals of the grant of hazardous waste landfill
permits)
as giving the respondent who had received the permit a)
the
right to a decision within the applicable statutory timeframe
(now 120 days),
and b) the right to waive
(extend) the decision
period (Alliance for a Safe Environment, et al.
v. Akron
Land
Corp. et al.,
PCB 80—184, October 30,
1980).
The Board
therefore construes Section 40.1(b)
in like manner, with the
result
that
failure
of
the Board to act
in 120 days would allow
respondent to deem the site location approved.
Pursuant to
Section 105.104 of the Procedural Rules,
it is each petitioner’s
responsibility to pursue its action, to insist that a hearing on
its petition is timely scheduled, and to insure that a transcript
of the hearing
is timely filed with the Board in order to allow
the Board to review the record and to render its decision within
120
days of the filing of the petition.
IT
IS SO ORDERED.
I,
Dorothy M. Gunn,
Clerk of the Illinois Pollution Control
Board, hereby cert~f~y
that the above Order was adopted on the
day of
7/
1-Iz
IL4~~’-~’
,
1984
by
a vote of
___-,
~
~
~
Dorothy M. ~unn, Clerk
Illinois
Pollution
Control
Board
61-216