ILLINOIS
POLLUTION
CONTROL
BOARD
December
4,
1980
CENTRAL
ILLINOIS PUBLIC SERVICE COMPANY,
(Meredosia Power Station),
)
Petitioner,
v.
)
PCB 80—187
ENVIRON~NTAL PROTECTION
AGENCY,
)
Resoondent.
OPINION AND ORDER OF THE BOARD
(by
I). Satchell):
This matter comes
before the Board upon a variance petition
filed October
10,
1980
by Central Illinois Public
Service Company
(CIPS).
The petition
requests for the Meredosia Power Station
an
extensIon of a variance previously granted from the effluent
standards for copper
(total),,
iron
(total)
and iron (dissolved)
of Rule 408(a)
of Chapter
3:
Water
Pollution for discharges
of
boiler chemical
cleaning
rinse
water
into
the
ash
pond.
On Novem-
ber 12, 1980 the
Illinois
Environmental Protection Agency
(Agency)
recommended that the variance be granted with conditions.
No
hearing was held and no public comment has been received.
The Board has prev~ouslygranted
a variance from the copper
and iron effluent standards
for
cleaning rinse water from the
Meredosia Power Station
(PCB 80-25.
Opinion
and Order,
38 PCB
49,
April
3,
1980;
38 PCB 279,
May 15r
1980)~,
The record and Opinion
and
Orders are incorporated
into
this
proceeding by reference.
That variance expired September
13,
1980,
by
which time CIPS had
expected to complete its
boiler cleaning~
CIPS was unable to
carry out cleaning of boiler number
6
(Unit
4)
during the sched-
uled period, but
now expects
to
do so
by December 31,
1980.
CIPS proposes to clean
its boiler
tubes
by filling them with
EDTA
(ethylenediaminetetraacetic
aci•d~
a
chelating
agent.
CIPS
will
haul
by
tanker
truck the
spent
EDTA
solution,
containing
most
of the metal
wastes~
for
treatment
away
from
the
site.
It
will
then be necessary
to
rinse
the
boiler tubes.
Because
of
the
volume
of
rinse
water,
it
is
not
practicable
to
haul
it
away.
CIPS
proposes
to
discharge
t:o
the
ash
pond
the
rinse
water
only.
Following
chemical
cleaning
the
boiler
tubes
are
exposed
down
to bare
metal
which
renders
them highly sensitive to corrosion.
To
retard
this
corrosion
a
protective
film
must
be
formed
on
the
tube
surfaces.
This
is
done
by
operating
the
boiler
with
hydra-
zine
added
to
the
cooling
water.
Because
it
was
not
economical
to
operate
the
boiler
during
the
proposed
cleaning
period,
the
cleaning
operation
could
not
be
carried
out
on
schedule.
40-~75
The
boiler
cleaning was originally
scheduled
to last a two
week period
from August 30 to September 13.
There are not
quite
four weeks remaining
between December
4
and
December
31, the last
date of the
requested
variance.
There
is
no
indication from the
Agency that the
timing
of the scheduled
cleaning
is of any conse-
quence.
In order
to
avoid the possibility of a
further extension,
the variance will
be
granted through
December
31, 1981, upon con-
dition that it
allows
only a single cleaning
episode.
The Board
finds
that CIPS would
suffer
arbitrary
and unreas-
onable hardship
if this variance were
denied,
for substantially
the same reasons
set
forth in the Board~s
previous Opinion in
PCB 80-25.
The variance
is granted with
the
conditions set forth
below.
This
Opinion
constitutes the Board~s
findings
of fact and
conclusions of
law
in this matter.
Petitioner,
Central Illinois Public Service
Company
(CIPS)
is granted for
its
Meredosia Power Station
a variance
from
the
effluent standards
for copper
(total), iron
(total)
and iron
(dissolved)
of
Rule
408(a)
of Chapter
3:
Water
Pollution,
sub-
ject to the
following
conditions:
1.
This
variance
will expire December 31,
1981 or upon
completion of
cleaning of boiler number
6
(Unit 4),
whichever occurs
first.
2.
This
variance shall apply only to
discharge to the ash
pond of
boiler cleaning rinse water
resulting from a
single boiler
cleaning operation.
3.
CIPS shall
notify the Agency prior to
starting and
upon
completion of boiler cleaning.
4,
Petitioner
shall not discharge EDTA
boiler cleaning
solution into
the ash pond,
5,
Petitioner
shall conduct a study to
determine treatment
capabilities
of the ash pond.
The
study
shall include
as
a
minimum data on ph of the
ash pond,
constituents
in the
metal cleaning waste rinses,
the concentration
of the
constituents and the
volume of cleaning waste
rinses discharged
to the ash
pond.
A summary
ô.’E rest~lt~
4O~
76
—3—
shall be sent to the Agency within ninety
days of
completion of boiler cleaning.
6.
The
Agency, pursuant to Rule 914 of Chapter
3:
Water
Pollution,
shall modify NPDES Permit
IL0000116 con-
sistent with conditions set forth in
this Order.
7.
Within forty-five days of the date of
this Order,
Petitioner shall execute and forward to
the Illinois
Environmental Protection Agency,
Variance
Section,
2200
Churchill Road, Springfield, Illinois
62706,
a
Certificate of Acceptance and Agreement
to be bound
to all terms and conditions of this variance.
This
forty-five day period shall be held in abeyance for
any period this matter is being appealed.
The form
of the Certificate shall be as follows:
CERTIFICATION
I,
(We),
_______,
having
read and fully~~
tandin
he
Order
in
PCB
80-187,
hereby
accept
that Order and
agree to be
bound by all
of
its
terms
and
conditions.
SIGNED ________________________
DATE
___________________________
IT
IS
SO
ORDERED.
I, Christan
L.
Moffett,
Clerk
of
the Illinois Pollution
Control Board,
hereby
certify
that ,the
above Opinion and Order
were ~dopted on
the
~
day
of
~
1980 by a vote
of
4’~C
Illinois Pollution
Control Board
40—77