ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD

October

3,

1972

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

v.

)

It

72—271

ILLINOIS POWER CO.

(BALDWIN STATION)

Order of the Board on Motion for Appeal

(by Mr. Currie):

Illinois Power asks us to authorize an interlocutory

appeal from our denial of its motion to dismiss on various

constitutional grounds.

We have rejected the arguments raised

by the motion to dismiss

in earlier decisions, e.g., EPA

V.

Granite City Steel Co.,

#70—34,

1 PCB 315 (March 17, 1971);

EPA v.Modern Plating Corp.,

# 70—38,

1 PCB 531 (May

3,

1971),

and we rejected them in this case for reasons given in

those opinions.

The law does not favor interlocutory appeals.

See City

of Evanston v. Pollution Control Board, Ill. App.

1st Dis-

trict 1972, dismissing an appeal from an interlocutory order

although the appeal asserted constitutional questions,

as here,

going to the Board~sauthority to act at all in the case sought

to be reviewed.

The normal procedure is to complete the

trial process before trying to appeal,

to avoid piecemeal

litigation and interruption of expeditious trial procedure.

To complete the hearing may well result in mooting the appeal

should the company prevail on the merits, and time is likely

to be saved by

pursuing that route in the long run rather than

by risking the time and effort of two separate appeals.

To authorize interlocutory appeals every time questions

of our authority are raised would mean the Board would have

to refrain from doing the job assigned it by the General

Assembly until some future date when our authority is upheld

by the ultimate appellate court.

We cannot thus abdicate

our statutory responsibilities.

The motion is denied.

Re-

view may be sought in the usual course following a final

Board decision.

I, Christan Moffett, Clerk of the Pollution Control Board,

certify that the Board adopted the above Order on Motion

for Appeal this

3 rd

day of October, 1972, by

a vote

of

~

c

5

—

579