ILLINOIS POLLUTION

CONTROL BOARD

November

21,

1984

ILLINOIS

ENVIRONMENTAL

)

PROTECTION

AGENCY,

)

Complainant,

)

v.

)

PCB

83—22

STANDARD SCRAP METAL CO.,

)

Respondent.

INTERIM

ORDER

OF

THE

BOARD (by J.

Anderson);

This matter comes before the Board upon a complaint filed on

February

23,

1983 by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency

(Agency)

against the Respondent, Standard Scrap Metal Co.

(Stan-

dard Scrap).

The Complaint alleges that the Respondent violated

Sections 9(a), 9(b),

and 9(c)

of the Environmental Protection Act

(Ill. Rev.

Stat.

1983,

ch.

111½,

pars.

1009)

(hereinafter

hl~Ac?l~),

and

Rules 103,

105,

202,

203 and 502 of Chapter 2;

Air

Pollution of the Board~sregulations,*

Hearing was held

on

February 29,

1984; no members of the general

public were present.

At the outset,

the parties presented

a Stipulation of Facts and

.~i

Proposal

for Partial Settlement,

The settlement agreement was

conditioned upon the Board~saccepting the terms of

settlement,

of which there are three,

entirely.

According to the Respondent,

the testimony and exhibits offered during the remainder

of the

hearing was for the purpose of mitigating any penalty imposed

based on the “economic reasonableness of compliance and the

financial ability of the company.”

(R.

12).

In the partial

settlement

agreement,

the parties also

reserved “the right to have a full evidentiary hearing on

all

matters not agreed to in this partial

settlement, particularly on

what amount of penalty,

if any,

that the Board should impose

on

Standard Scrap.”

Nowhere

in the Board’s procedural rules

is

it

provided

that the parties may by stipulation

or otherwise, reserve a

prior right to an

“evidentiary hearing” on matters left to Board

determination when one or more parties might disagree with that

determination.

This approach is unacceptable,

in that the power

*Chapter

2 has

been codified since this Complaint was filed.

For convenience the former

numbering

system is used in this Order.

---

of the Board to determine the finality of its own decisions

is

delegated to the parties.

Of course,

the usual methods of

appeal,

such as motions for reconsideration and appeals to the

appellate court,

are available to both parties.

Additionally, the Board finds that the partial

settlement

is

insufficient and vague

as to what other matters besides the

penalty

‘not agreed to” are left for Board determination.

Given these circumstances, the Board rejects the stipulation

of Facts and a Proposal

for Partial Settlement and orders this

case to hearing within

45 days of the date of this order unless

the parties,

within

15 days of the date of this Order, request

the Board to determine the case based on the merits as contained

in the record presently before it,

Board Member

~3,

Theodore Meyer dissented,

IT

IS SO ORDERED,

I, Dorothy M. Gunn,

Clerk of the Illinois Pollution Control

Board, hereby certify that the above Interim Order was adopted

onthe~~’~4

day of_______________

,

1984 by a

vote

of

(

~7~//

~

Dorothy

M.

c~nn,

Clerk

Illinois

P~lution

Control

Board

~1