ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD

February 28,

1991

SEXTON ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEMS,

INC.,)

Petitioner,

v.

)

PCB 91-4

)

(Permit Appeal)

ILLINOIS ENVIRONMENTAL

)

PROTECTION AGENCY,

)

Respondent.

DISSENTING OPINION

(by B. Forcade):

I respectfully dissent from today’s order.

I would have

denied the motion for extension of time to respond to the motion

for summary judgment.

I would have.held that the matter was ripe

for summary disposition because Sexton had not asserted any

contested issues of fact,

nor had Sexton denied the Agency’s

assertion that there is no contested issue of material fact.

I

would have allowed Sexton time to file a brief responding to the

legal issues raised by the Agency, but would have cancelled the

hearing in today’s order.

Today, the Board adopted orders in administrative citation

cases where the

~~costs1tof a

hearing are assessed.

A typical

case, AC 90-42,

IEPA v. Robert Wheeler,

imposed costs of

$1,100.40.

This represents the court reporter and hearing

officer costs for a reasonably short hearing and does not include

the costs of publication of notice of hearing, copying of the

transcripts, and various other costs incurred by the Board with a

hearing.

In this time of very tight budgets, the Board is simply

unable to fulfill all its hearing obligations as they arise.

In

some proceedings,

the Board must encourage the petitioners to

waive the decision deadline until fiscal 1992, though the

participants may be greatly inconvenienced by lack of a rapid

hearing and decision.

In proceedings that lack a statutory

default deadline the hearings may have to be deferred though the

participants may need a rapid hearing and decision.

All this

effort juggling the hearing schedules is necessary to ensure that

no permit review decision is deemed granted by operation of law

(See for example Section 40(a) (2)

of the Act).

In such circumstances, the Board must work hard to eliminate

unnecessary hearings.

Here,

Sexton has not made a case that

hearing

is necessary.

119—7 1

---

2

(

Bill S.

~‘orcade

Board Member

I, Dorothy M. Gunn, Clerk of the Illinois Pollution Control

Board, heçeby certify that the above Dissenting Opinion was filed

on the

~‘~-‘

day of

__________________,

1991.

Dorothy

I~1

Gunn, Clark

Illinois VPollution Control Board

119—72