ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD

August

30,

1971

CITY OF CARROLLTON AND

CARROLLTON FARMERS ELEVATOR

COMPANY

#

PCB 71~-210

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

Opinion of

the Board

(by Mr. Currie):

This

is

a Petition for variance filed jointly on July

26,

1971

by the City of Carroilton and the Carroliton Farmers Elevator

Company to allow open burning of trees, which must be burned as

a result of age, disease or storm,

by the City of Carroilton.

We dismissed the petition August

5 and this opinion gives our reasons.

The Carrollton Farmers Elevator Company wishes

to burn corn

cobs, stating that an average of seventy~five truck loads

of corn

cobs per year must be disposed

of.

The alleged hardship with

regard to the City of Carrollton

is that “compliance with the

provisions from which variance is sought would impose an

arbitrary or unreasonable hardship because either the trees,

logs and

limbs must remain where they fall

or individual property

owners must burn them on the site”,

The alleged hardship with

regard to the Carroilton Farmers Elevator Company is that

“compliance with

the provisions from which variance is sought

would impose on the elevator

an unreasonable

hardship because

the Company would no longer be

able to use its corn shelling

facility as it would have no way to dispose of the corn cobs

after the process was completed”.

As we have often pointed out, open burning has been illegal

in Illinois since

1965.

The joint petitioners allege no facts

that make their case different from that of any other municipality

or company.

What the petitioners seek is not

a variance but

a repeal of the regulation.

Moreover, they have offered only

bare conclusions as to their inability

to solve their open

burning problems in accordance with the rules.

We have held

on numerous occasions that mere conclusory allegations are

insufficient

in

a petition for variance

(e.g., City of Jacksonville

v.

EPA,

#

70~30,January,

1971).

There

is no allegation as to

what the costs of compliance would be

and no indication of the

extent to which

the community might suffer if the variances

were granted and,

therefore, the petitthon is fatally deficient,

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327

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We have dismissed numerous petitions such as this in the

past involving the burning of trees.

The only argument here

is that it costs more not to pollute than it does to burn in

the open.

We find this argument totally inadequate to support

a petition for variance and, accordingly, order the petition

dismissed without prejudice.

I,

Regina E.

Ryan, Clerk of the Pollution Control Board, certify

that the Board adopted the above Opinion this

30 day of

August

‘

1971.

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