ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
September
8,
1983
ILLINOIS
POWER COMPANY,
Petitioner,
v.
)
PCB 79—7
ILLINOIS ENVIRONMENTAL
PROTECTION AGENCY,
Respondent.
MR. SHELDON
A.
ZABEL AND MS. CARLOYN
~.
L~N OF SCHIFF, HARDIN
& WAITE APPEARED ON BEHALF
OF THE ILLINOIS POWER COMPANY.
MR. JOSEPH
R.
PODLEWSKI,
JR., ATTORNEY, APPEARED ON BEHALF OF THE
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY.
ORDER OF THE BOARD
(by 3D.
Durnel le):
On March
31,
1983 the Illinois Power Company
(IPC)
filed
a Petition to Amend Order requesting the Board amend
its
February
15,
1979 Order herein.
That Opinion and Order,
entered
pursuant to Rule 204(e)(3)
of Chapter
2:
Air Pollution,
imposed
specific emission limitations for sulfur dioxide
on IPC’s Baldwin
power station.
On April
21,
1983 the Board entered a second
Opinion and Order
in this matter granting the requested relief.
On May
3,
1983, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency
(Agency) submitted the April
21,
1983 Order to the United States
Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)
as
a supplement
to the
revision to the Illinois State Implementation Plan
(SIP)
pending before USEPA since the submission of the Board’s original
Order herein of February
15,
1979.
However, on May 13,
1983
USEPA informed the Agency that
in its opinion the Order of April
21,
1983 could not be considered as part
of the SIP submittal unless
a public hearing was held.
Therefore,
on May 18,
1983 IPC filed
a motion with the Board requesting
that a hearing be scheduled.
That motion was granted and hearing was held on July 22, 1983 at
which IPC presented two witnesses and the Agency presented none.
No members of the public testified.
However, a letter from Steve
Rothblatt, Chief of the Air and Radiation Branch of Region V
of USEPA, did submit comments which were included
in the record
and to which
IPC responded on July
27,
1983.
54-01
—2—
Since the Agency’s presentation of the Board’s
February 15,
1979 Opinion and Order as
an amendment to the State
Implementation.
Plan
(SIP),
USEPA has been reviewing
the
sufficiency of those
limitations and questions the use of a particular air quality
model with respect to its accuracy
in predicting compliance with
the secondary air quality standard.
USEPA asserts
that the
CRSTER model
is superior to the MPSDM model
in predicting
attainment of primary and secondary standards.
IPC disagrees and
believes that it can prove that the MPSDM model
is superior.
Both models have been used and both predict compliance with the
primary standard while only the CRSTER model predicts compliance
with the secondary standard.
However,
since USEPA agrees
with the Board that the limitation will
assure compliance with
the primary sulfur dioxide standard,
it has suggested that
it
could approve the emission limitations for primary compliance as
a SIP amendment if the Board were to order a compliance schedule
for attainment of the secondary standard.
None of the evidence or testimony presented
at hearing provides
any reason for the Board to alter
its reasoning concerning the
disposition of this matter.
As the Board stated in its April 21,
1983 Order,
“holding a hearing to satisfy
Rule 204(e) would be
perfunctory”
in that “the original Rule 204(e) process,
including
the hearing, provided a basis
for the original Order” which
is
less restrictive than the amended order requested
at this time
(PCB 79—7 Order,
p.
2).
The hearing did,
in fact, elicit little
new,
substantive information, and largely served to reaffirm
IPC’s
legitimate need for the requested relief,
except for USEPA’s
comments which indicate that there may be some impediments
to
USEPA approval
of that relief as
a SIP revision.
In its response,
however,
“IPC submits that USEPA’s Letter has not shown any basis
for the Board not to adopt the proposal.”
While the Board will not adopt an Order which
is a nullity,
the Board agrees that the letter is not a sufficient basis for
denial.
The SIP approval process
is complex and denial cannot be
presumed on the basis of USEPA’s comment.
IPC has taken the
position that
it can adequately
respond to USEPA’s concern, and
neither IPCB nor the Agency has recommended any modification
of
the Order entered
on April
21.
Since they, rather than the
Board, are the parties who must pursue the SIP revision,
the
Board will not presume
to substitute
its judgment as to accepta-
bility of the Order as a SIP revision absent a compelling reason
to do so.
The Board,
therefore, hereby reproposes the Order entered
on
April
21,
1983 as set out below:
ORDER
It
is the Order
of the Pollution Control Board
that:
1.
Illinois Power Company be granted a site—specific mass
emission limitation
for sulfur dioxide
for its Baldwin Power
54-02
—3—
Plant of 101,966 pounds of sulfur dioxide
per
hour in the aggregate
and
an emission rate not to exceed 6 pounds of sulfur dioxide
per
~nil1ionBtu’s of heat input as determined pursuant to
Rule 204(e)(3);
2.
Illinois Power Company shall submit to the Illinois
Environmental
Protection
Agency
modeling
and
monitoring
demon-
stration(s)
comparatively
evaluating
the ambient air quality
models known as CRSTER
and
MPSDM
for
purposes
of
determining
which model more accurately describes the ambient air quality
impact of
the
Baldwin
Plant.
3.
The Illinois Environmental Protection
Agency
shall,
as
part of its
permit
review process, review the demonstration(s)
required by paragraph 2 hereof and determine whether it establishes
that the emission limitation in paragraph 1 provide for compliance
with primary and secondary ambient air quality standards.
a)
If the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency
concludes that primary and secondary compliance is demon-
strated,
it shall notify the Board in
writing,
and
submit
the appropriate information to the United States Environ-
mental Protection Agency
and
thereafter paragraph
4 hereof
shall have no further force and effect.
b)
If the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency
concludes that
primary
and
secondary
compliance
has
not
been demonstrated, subject to the review, and the decisions
on review provided for by the Illinois Environmental Protection
Act, Illinois Power Company shall comply with the provisions
of paragraph 4 hereof and Illinois Environmental Protection
Agency shall impose such permit conditions in the permits for
the Baldwin Plant as are necessary therefore.
4.
Subject to the foregoing, the Illinois Power Company
shall undertake and implement as expeditiously as is practical,
but no later than
December
31, 1989, unless amended by further
order of this Board, a program at the Baldwin Plant to achieve
compliance with a sulfur dioxide emission limitation of 74,300
pounds
of sulfur dioxide
per
hour or such other limitation as
shall be determined in accordance with then applicable United
States Environmental Protection Agency guidelines and requirements,
necessary
to
achieve
compliance
with
the
secondary
sulfur
dioxide
ambient
air
quality
standards.
The
Illinois
Environmental
Protection
Agency
may
impose
in
operating
permits,
subject
to
review
as
provided
in
the
Illinois
Environmental
Protection
Act,
such
reasonable
interim
compliance
and
reporting
progress towards fulfillment of the
requirements
of
this
paragraph.
IT
IS
SO
ORDERED.
54-03
—4—
I,
Christan L.
Moffett, Clerk of the Illinois Pollution
Control
Board, hereby certif~ythat the above Order was adopted on
the ~~day
pf
~
1983
by
a vote of
~S
~
Christan L. Moffe~/~er~
Illinois Pollution Con’t~oi Board
54-04