ILLINOIS
POLLUTION
CONTROL BOARD
August 20,
1981
REYNOLDS METALS COMPANY,
)
Petitioner,
)
v.
)
PCB 79—81
ILLINOIS ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
)
AGENCY,
Respondent.
OPINION AND
ORDER
OF THE BOARD
(by J.D. Dumelleh
This matter comes before the Board upon a petition and
amended petition for variance filed April
9 and April
26,
1979 by Reynolds Metals Company (Reynolds) seeking a variance
front Rules 303,
305(a) and 305(b) of Chapter
7:
Solid Waste,
in connection with operation of a landfill adjacent to Reynolds’
L4cCook plant in Cook County.
On May
31.,
1979 the Illinois
Environmental Protection Agency
(Agency) recommended that the
variance be denied or, in the alternative, be granted with
conditions.
Public hearings were held in Chicago on
January 12
and April 23,
1981.
No members of the public attended and
the Board has received no public comment.
At the second hearing
the parties presented a stipulation of facts as well as an
exhibit and testimony.
The hearing consisted solely of testimony
regarding two Agency recommended conditions which are contested
by Reynolds.
Reynolds has agreed to all other conditions.
The plant is situated at First Avenue and 47th Street
in McCook.
It employs about 2500 people and produces aluminum
sheet, plate and other aluminum products.
The landfill
is in
an old quarry covering approximately three and one—half acres,
ranging in depth from eighty to eighty—five feet
(Stip.
1).
Part of the quarry has been completely
filled, with an area of
about
1½
acres remaining only partially filled (2:96)~ The
completed area has been covered and graded,
and a berm has been
constructed to prevent entry of surface water into the active
area.
*J3ecause the transcripts are not numbered sequentially, references
will indicate both volume and page number.
Page fifty
in volume
two will be indicated thus:
(2:50).
43—161
—2—
The pit was formed by mining silurian dolomite.
The
dolomite
is
fifty to 500 feet thick in the Chicago
area.
it
is overlain by glacial till,
through which it is recharged
with water.
It is porous and contains man~3fissures.
It
exhibits an average permeability of
3 x
10
cm/sec and an
average transmissibility of 25,000 gal/day/ft(sic).
It is a
major aquifer of the area
(Ex.
1,
P.
6,
8).
Any leachate
entering the dolomite has the potential to move large distances
with little attenuation
(2:29,
58).
At one time Reynolds utilized the quarry
for disposal
of a range of wastes.
From 1970 through 1979 waste included
construction waste, banding
iron,
fluxing tubes and sludge
from the plant’s wastewater treatment plant
(2:44).
It
is not
clear whether the sludge was from sanitary or process wastewater.
Reynolds presented no evidence concerning the identity of
materials deposited prior to 1970
(2:43).
However,
the Agency
took samples of the sludge during 1979.
Neutral extracts
were analyzed.
The aluminum content was found to be 55 ppm,
but chromium,
copper,
iron, and lead were all 0.45 ppm or
less.
(Acid extracts ranged from 11 ppm for lead to 1500 ppm for
iron.)
Currently Reynolds utilizes the quarry only for disposal
of construction waste produced by modifications
in the plant.
At the time the petition was filed this was about fifty trucks
per day, but by the time of the second hearing the amount had
been reduced to five trucks per day.
There are eight to twelve
cubic yards per truck load
(Pet.
2;
Stip.
2;
2:7,
31).
Reynolds seeks
a variance from Rules 303,
305(a) and
305(b).
Rule 303 requires that refuse be deposited at the
toe of the fill and that it be spread and compacted into cells
not more than two feet thick.
Rule 305(a) requires six inches
of daily cover, and Rule 305(b) requires twelve inches of inter-
mediate cover in all areas where no refuse will be deposited
within sixty days.
Reynolds does not comply with these operating
requirements because it has no road down into the pit.
Instead it
merely pushes the refuse off the edge.
These operating requirements of Chapter
7 contemplate that
waste should be spread and compacted into thin cells with a layer
of material between cells which will prevent transmission of
water.
Sites are to be given a final cover of low permeability
and to be graded to prevent infiltration of water.
The demolition waste dumped at this site has not been
compacted or separated into cells with daily cover.
In its
loose state
it likely contains many voids and is probably highly
permeable.
When final cover
is applied there may be problems
with
subsidence due to these voids.
The first question the Board must reach is whether Reynolds
must have
a permit for this site.
If
a permit is required,
then
Rules 303 and 305 allow methods of operation and cover to be
specified in the permit which differ from those normally imposed.
That being the case,
variance may be unnecessary.
—3—
The Board finds that a permit is required for this site.
The language of Section 21(d)
of the Environmental Protection
Act
(Act) which requires a permit for “refuse—collection or
refuse—disposal operations, except
for refuse generated by
the operators own activities” has been limited by both
the
Board and the Third District Appellate Court.
In EPA v. City of Pontiac, PCB 74—396,
18 PCB 303
(August 7,
1975), t1~Boardheld that the exception “only exempts minor
amounts of refuse which could be disposed of without environmental
harm upon the site where it was generated.”
In R.E.
Joos
Excavating~v. EPA,
58 Ill. App.
3d 309,
374 N.E.
2d 486
(March 31,
1978),
the Court also found it necessary to limit this exception,
stating:
Limiting the exception to refuse or material generated
on site where it will be disposed of operates to
prevent the objectives the Legislature envisioned
in passing the Environmental Protection Act from
being readily circumvented (374 N.E.
2d 489).
Generally, the type of debris disposed of here would
fall under this more limited exception.
However,
the limited
evidence presented as to the materials previously dumped at
the site, the permeability of the site, the location of the
site above the area aquifer, and the lack of cover combine
to present a real potential for serious environmental harm.
Certainly,
the legislative intent is circumvented where a
potential for serious environmental harm is allowed.
The Board finds that a 3½ acre quarry which is to be
completely filled with refuse generated by the operator’s own
activities
is not the type of activity which was envisioned by
the legislature in enacting this exception.
The amounts of
refuse involved here are too great and the site too unsound
to allow such a site to be exempted from the Agency oversight
which is inherent in the Agency’s permitting program.
A quarry,
unless properly managed,
is an extremely dangerous
site for a landfill.
In general, permeability is high,
and this
problem is compounded by the cracks and fissures.
Any leachate
production can be readily transmitted to the groundwater which
necessitates greater digilence in oversight and control
of such
a site compared to a non—quarry landfill.
In this particular
case,
leachate is presently being produced which could cause
major pollution problems but for dewatering activities at an
adjacent quarry owned by Material Services Corporation
(Ex.
1,
pp.
1,
15; 2:53).
However, Reynolds has no control over this
and the Board cannot determine how long these activities will
continue
(2:45).
Only through the requirement of a permit can
the Agency properly inspect and oversee operations to insure that
the environment is protected.
43—163
—4—
The Board further finds the fact that the quarry
is a
leasehold to be inconsistent with the exception.
The
record discloses little about the relationship of the ownership
of the quarry
to the ownership of the remainder of
the site.
If the Board were to allow a site operator to dispose of refuse
in a leasehold without a permit, many facilities could simply
lease adjacent property for a short period of
time,
dump their
refuse in this unpermitted site, and leave.
This also would allow
the objectives of the Act to be readily circumvented.
A landfill site has an extended life.
Wastes cannot simply
be covered and neglected.
State and federal post—closure
regulations
are predicated upon the necessity of long—term
oversight of such facilities.
Someone must remain responsible
for insuring that environmental problems do not arise in the
future and must be liable for rectifying problems that do arisc~.
A lessee does not generally have the necessary ongoing interest
in the property to give this protection.
A lessee need not
be
as seriously concerned with what he does to a leasehold
as an owner must be of his property.
Therefore,
the Section
21(d) exemption should not be applicable
to leaseholds.
The Board, therefore,
dismisses the variance petition
in this matter for failure to establish an arbitrary or un-
reasonable hardship in that
the Agency may issue an acceptable
permit to Reynolds upon proper application.
If the Agency
denies the permit or includes conditions which are unacceptable
to Reynolds,
that decision may be appealed to the Board.
This
Opinion
constitutes
the
Board’s
findings
of
fact
and
conclusions of law in this matter.
ORDER
Reynolds
Metal
Company’s
request
for
variance
from
Rules
303,
305(a)
and 305(b)
of Chapter
7:
Solid Waste is hereby denied,
and
proceedings in PCB 79-81 are hereby dismissed.
IT
IS
SO
ORDERED.
I, Christan L. Moffett, Clerk of the Illinois Pollution
Control Board, hereby certify that the abpve Opinion and Order
was adopted on the c~O~day of
4u.
~
,
1981 by
a vote
of-~Y-~).
Christan
L.
Mo
Clerk
Pollution
Contril
(Board
43—164