116 Hamilton Place

RECEIVED

Vernon Hills, IL 60O6lC1~~I’S

OFFICE

November 6, 2000

STATENOV OF

0

IWNOIS

8

2000

Sierra Club Woods & Wetlands Group

Pollutton Control Bocird

Dorothy Gunn, Clerk

Illinois Pollution Control Board

100 W. Randolph St.

Docket RO 1-10

Suite 11-500

.2 ~

Chicago, IL 60601

~.

Please accept these comments as asupplement to those submitted by Jack Darin on behalf ofthe IL Sierra Club

Chapter. The Woods & Wetlands Group represents 2000 of the IL members, and has been atthe epicenter of the

peaker plant problem. We are concerned by the damage new power plants will do to our environment. We are also

distressed that our state government has not done more to help us better understand and respond to the number,

performance, and location ofnew power plants. Please consider these points:

• The present reliance on local citizens to be experts is extremelytaxing. Hearings

in

Libertyville went

on for

JO

months, 2 per month, 4 hours each! It wore us out! We need more help protecting our environment, and we

expect more from our IEPA.

• Frivolous applications. They’re all the same. They are usually incomplete. They are all recommended by IEPA

for approval. The tenor at IEPA hearings is: approve it now, and adjust the numbers later. This betrays the

spirit of the hearing and the good faith ofthe citizens. Shell andpuppet owners should not be accepted.

• Loopholes replacing loopholes. We’ve suffered from Grandfathered Coal. And then the NOx Waiver. Those

should stop. They should not be replaced by a new loophole: synthetic minors. Please end manipulation of our

environmental laws!

• False Choice: Peakers are compared to coal as cleaner, but we’re being asked to accept peakers AND coal

plants. Neither should be justified by comparison to the other unless one truly replaces the other. The grid, and

the lack of an energy policy, make this untrue.

• The Power Pyramid. New plants are not needed until other measures have been exploited: Conserve, then

Cogeneration on existing plants, then Renewable Energy, then, last of all fossil plants. The order has been

reversed. Expectations should be placed on new sources to significantly support the more effective measures

in exchange for the privilege ofpolluting our environment.

• We need more comprehensive regulation of energy sources that considers--the aggregate and various

environmental burdensof each. This year it is peakers. Next year it will be microturbines, and even fuel cells

after that. Please consider more general rules that will include the many impacts (noise, air, water, land) of

these and other new sources in the near future.

Sincerely,

—;“__

-~

,-‘

~-

-~-~-~

SIER~

Evan L. Craig

CLUB

~-o-t-~t~tr,

Group Chair

U

PROTECT AMERICA’S ENVIRONMENT

For our Families

,..