ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
February
7,
1980
INTERNATIONAL MINERALS
& CHEMICAL
CORPORATION,
Petitioner,
PCB 79~l76
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY,
Respondent
OPINION AND ORDER OF THE BOARD
(by Dr. Satchell):
This matter comes before the Board upon a petition for
variance filed August
27,
1979 by International Minerals and
Chemicals Corporation
(IMC),
a New York Corporation authorized
to do business in Illinois.
On December 12, 1979 an amended
petition was filed requesting a variance from Rule 502 pursuant
to Rule 505 of Chapter
2:
Air Pollution Control Regulations.
These rules govern open burninq of explosive waste.
Petitioner
also submitted with the amendment the results of air quality
modeling and filed a motion for expedited consideration citing a
serious hazard of fire in the accumulated waste.
IMC has waived
its right to a hearing and no public comment has been received.
On January
23,
1980 the Agency recommended that the variance be
denied,
IMC responded on January
30,
1980.
The Trojan Division of IMC~sChemical Group operates a plant
in Wolf Lake, Union County.
The description of the business given
by Petitioner
is not adequate to meet the requirements
of Procedural
Rule 401(a) (2) and
(3).
Apparently,
IMC manufactures explosives and
also fabricates primers from scrap military explosives at the plant
(Rec., Ex.
1).
It is not clear whether this
is a full or complete
description of the operation.
The petition requests a variance to
allow open burning of reject shells and contaminated packaging
materials.
At the time it filed the petition, IMC had on hand
129,000 kg
(285,000 lbs.)
of existing contaminated packaging and
reject shells and estimated that it was generating about 2500 kg
(5500
lbs.)
per week.
Petitioner proposes to conduct open burning
in a ~fenced,
remote northern area,” approximately two~thirdsmile distant
from the nearest home.
Petitioner has attached as Exhibit
I a
topographical map showing the location of the plant.
This ex~
hibit shows that the plant is situated within the boundaries of
37~319
Shawnee National Forest.
The burning site
is located at an
elevation of 350 feet approximately 400 feet from the base of
a steep
slope.
It is less than 1000 feet from the crest of a
ridge with elevations varying from 600 to 700 feet above sea
level.
The petition contains no discussion of measures which
have been taken to ensure that
a fire does not start on the
slope or of difficulties which could be encountered in fighting
a fire on such a slope.
There is also no discussion of the
effect the emissions might have on the environment peculiar to
this area of the National Forest.
The nearest air quality mon-
itoring station is not identified.
The petition is therefore
deficient under Procedural Rules 401(a) (4)
and
(7),
The proposed burning site is situated adjacent to the
eastern shore of Wolf Lake
(Pet., Ex.
1).
The Agency has ex-
pressed concern that burning at that site could cause water
pollution problems from the resulting ground water runoff.
In
its response IMC states that it has taken unspecified steps to
avoid this problem.
Petitioner alleges that IMC has been previously granted
variances for open burning of solid wastes in PCB 71—57, 71-58
and 74-32,
Apparently the last of these was actually the only
variance granted
(Trojan-U.S.
Powder Co.
v.
EPA,
13 PCB 105,
July
18,
1974).
In that Order the Board granted a six month
variance to burn 1100 pounds per day of waste similar to that
described above,
The variance was conditioned on posting of a
$10,000 performance bond and on filing with the Agency and Board
within three months a detailed plan to bring the site into com-
pliance.
The plan was to include as a minimum:
a firm compli’-
ance date,
if possible;
a timetable for an ongoing research and
development program either internally or externally conducted;
a complete economic study of hand picking of wastes;
and a
distinction between plans for solid and contaminated wastes.
The petition contains no explanation of how the site has operated
for four and one—half years without a variance and yet has only
fifty-two weeks worth of accumulated waste.
There
is no dis-
cussion of Petitioner~srecord of compliance with the previous
variance conditions
as
is usually offered in petitions for ex-
tension of previous variances.
The Agency files indicate that no compliance plan or per-
formance bond was ever provided
(Rec,
3).
On August 14, 1974
Petitioner informed the Agency that it
no
longer required a
variance for open burning.
On May 24,
1976 the Agency wrote a
letter indicating that there might be violations
of the Solid
37—320
Waste Rules
in connection with landfilling operations on the
site.
On June
5,
1976 the facility indicated it would
file a
permit application.
Forms were provided on June
10, 1976 but
the Agency never received an application.
On February
3, 1977
an inspection revealed that the landfill had been discontinued.
On May 26,
1977 an Agency inspector found that explosive
contaminated waste was being stockpiled on the site.
At that
time there was an indication that IMC would again
file a variance
petition for open burning.
No such petition was filed until this
proceeding commenced in August,
1979.
On September
4,
1979 the
Agency conducted another inspection.
This revealed the stockpile
which IMC estimates
at 129,000 kg,
Mr.
R.
W.
Levan, Assistant
Plant Manager, indicated that the stockpile dated to October or
November,
1978 but denied knowledge of disposal practices prior
to February,
1979 when the Agency inspector indicated that he
had observed stockpiling in May, 1977
(Rec.
5).
On September
4, 1977 the Agency inspector observed waste
materials in the pile which did not appear to be explosive
contaminated waste,
On September
7,
1979 Mr. William Ernst,
IMC’s environmental affairs officer, advised the Agency that all
waste from the facility was placed in the pile with the exception
of the baled waste paper from the shell house
(Rec,
6).
Office
waste was considered explosive contaminated waste due to the fact
that it was placed in a haul wagon which
also contained explosive
contaminated waste
(Rec.
7).
In its response IMC states that
it is now taking steps to separate office waste.
In its petition IMC alleges that in 1976 it retained a
consulting engineer to investigate a wet maceration system for
the contaminated paper and wood.
In this procedure the explosive
contaminants would be washed from the packaging materials with
water.
The materials would then be baled and landfilled.
This
system was rejected because of a potential water pollution
problem and doubt about whether the packaging materials would
actually be free of explosives.
This seems inconsistent with
the Agency’s allegations that the facility actually engaged in
landfilling from 1974 through 1976
(Rec,
3)
IMC
is still con-
sidering making application for a landfill permit.
The Agency’s
Division of Land Pollution Control has been in contact with IMC,
but no soil borings
have been taken to determine the suitability
of
the site
(Rec.
8).
IMC has also presented a memorandum from a Mr.
P. Barnhard
who visited prototype incinerators at Tooele Army Depot.
Esti-
mated installed costs were $140,000 for explosive waste, $110,000
37-~321
—4—
for contaminated waste and $130,000 for air pollution control
equipment.
The explosive waste prototype had been unable to
contain explosion of a five pound charge and the contaminated
waste incinerator was unable to contain any explosion.
Mr.
Barnhard recommended against construction of either
for safety
reasons,
With respect to contaminated waste the fear
was
that
an
occasional
full box of powder
would be
fed
into the system.
There is no discussion of the costs and feasibility of hand
sorting of wastes.
With respect to explosive waste, there is
no explanation
of
why the explosive cannot be fed
in quantities
smaller than five pounds.
Petitioner also discusses
the explosive waste incinerators
operated by Olin Corporation near Marion which are
the
subject
of a site specific regulation pending before the Board in R78-9,
Petitioner alleges that a valid correlation cannot
be
made be-
cause the wastes burned
at Olin are not
of the same explosive
category as those burned at Wolf
Lake,
On September
4,
1979 Mr.
R.
N. Levan of INC indicated
that
there
was
danger of fire
in the stockpiled material,
but
that
an
explosion was unlikely
(Rec,
5),
On
October 12,
1979 about
60
of
the material was consumed
in
a fire on the site
(Rec,
6)
Witnesses said that
although
there was some flashing or rapid
burning, no explosions occurred during the fire
(Rec.
7)
.
IMC
representatives have indicated
to the
Agency
that
they desire to
abandon the proposed remote burning site and conduct open burning
adjacent to
the
stockpile area to save haulinq costs,
A reading
of the
Board’s Opinion and Order of July
18,
1974
indicates that the issues before
the
Board at that time were vir-
tually identical
to the issues in this proceeding,
The
Board’s
solution then was a six month variance conditioned on a thorough
study of the problem.
Five years later INC
is before the Board
with a petition and three
page
memo concluding
that incineration
is impossible.
The
memo
does not even discuss all of
the
issues
that
were to have been
studied
four and one—half years
ago.
Under
the circumstances the Board will
not
award another variance con-
ditioned on performing studies which were
to
have been done years
ago.
To maintain its assertion
of
impossibility at this time INC
should have presented concrete proposals with itemized costs and
definite
reasons
why they would not work.
Procedural Rules
401(a)
(6),
(8) and
(9)
require in variance petitions,
among other things,
detailed description of proposed equipment to achieve full compli-
37—322
—5—
ance,
including a time schedule, past efforts
to achieve compliance
including costs incurred and a discussion of the availability of
alternate methods of compliance.
The petition is deficient
in
these respects
as well as those detailed above.
It
will
therefore
he dismissed,
In its response INC alleges that the Agency has proposed
in
P79-14 to eliminate Rule 505 and allow open burning of explosive
waste by permit.
This is remote from the issues of this
proceeding.
This Opinion constitutes the Board’s
findings of fact
and
conclusions of law in this
matter.
ORDER
The petition in this matter is dismissed,
IT IS SO ORDERED,
I, Christan L. Moffett, Clerk of the Illinois Pollution
Control Board, hereby certify th
above Opinion and Order were
adopted
on the
7
~
day of
~
1980 by a vote of
•
an L. Mof
Clerk
Illinois Pollution Control Board
37—323