ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL
BOARD
March 31,
1994
REND
LAKE
CONSERVANCY
)
DISTRICT,
Petitioner,
v.
)
PCB 94—103
)
(Provisional Variance)
ILLINOIS ENVIRONMENTAL
PROTECTION AGENCY,
Respondent.
ORDER OF THE BOARD
(by J. Theodore Meyer):
Pursuant to Section 35(b)
of the Environmental Protection
Act
(Act)
(415 ILCS 5/35(b)), Rend Lake Conservancy District has
requested that the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency
(Agency)
recommend that the Board grant a provisional variance to
allow Rend Lake Conservancy District to continue operating during
a period of wastewater treatment plant modifications.
Such
request for a provisional variance and the Notification of
Recommendation was filed with the Board by the Agency on
Wednesday, March 30, 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 Rend Lake Conservancy
District in order to allow it to continue operating during a
period of wastewater treatment plant modifications.
Specifically, the Agency recommends that we grant Rend Lake
Conservancy District a forty—five (45)—day provisional variance
for its Franklin County facility from the biochemical oxygen
demand
(CBOD5) and suspended solids
(SS) effluent requirements as
set forth in 35 Ill. Adm. Code 304.120 and 304.141 for the period
from when the petitioner begins construction procedures to
upgrade its wastewater treatment plant and continuing until the
petitioner returns that unit to service, but not for longer than
45 days.1
1During the construction period lagoon cell #2 will be removed
from service and flows held in lagoon cell #1 will be released into
Jordon
Creek,
a
tributary to the Middle
Fork
of the Big Muddy
River.
2
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 304.120 and 304.141,
on the following conditions:
I.
The term of this provisional variance shall commence
when the petitioner, Rend Lake Conservancy District
initiates construction at its wastewater treatment plant and
it shall expire on the date the petitioner completes the
required construction work,
or after forty-five
(45) days
have elapsed, whichever comes first;
2.
During the term of this provisional variance, the
effluent from the petitioner’s treatment plant shall not
exceed concentrations of 50 mg/l CBOD5 and 60 mg/l SS (each
on a monthly average, concentration limits);
3.
The petitioner shall notify Byron Marks of the Agency’s
Marion Regional office by telephone,
at (618)993—7200, when
discharge from lagoon cell #1 begins and when construction
work is completed,
and 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
3
2200 Churchill Road
P.O. Box 19276
Springfield, Illinois
62794—9276
Attention:
Mark T.
Books
4.
The petitioner shall perform the necessary
construction and modification work as expeditiously as
possible and operate its plant during the term of this
provisional variance in a manner that assures the best
treatment practicable; and
5.
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:
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—103, March 31,
1994.
Petitioner
Authorized Agent
Title
Date
IT IS SO ORDERED.
4
I, Dorothy M. Gunn, Clerk of the Illinois Pollution Control
Bq.~rd,do hereby certify that ~he above order was adopted on the
~/-~
day of ____________________________,
1994,
by a vote of
Dorothy M. GØ1~r,Clerk
Illinois Poi~3ition Control Board