ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
    January 18,
    1996
    GENERAL
    ELECTRIC
    )
    COMPANY, INC.,
    )
    Petitioner,
    v.
    )
    PCB 96—159
    )
    (Provisional Variance—Water)
    ILLINOIS ENVIRONMENTAL
    )
    PROTECTION AGENCY,
    )
    )
    Respondent.
    ORDER OF THE BOARD (by C. A. Manning):
    Pursuant to Section 35(b)
    of the Environmental Protection
    Act (Act)
    (415 ILCS 5/35(b)), General Electric Company,
    Inc.
    (General Electric), has requested that the IllinOis Environmental
    Protection Agency
    (Agency)
    recommend that the Board grant a
    provisional variance to allow General Electric to continue
    operating during a period of wastewater treatment plant
    malfunction.
    Such request for a provisional variance and the
    Notification of Recommendation was filed with the Board by the
    Agency on January 17,
    1996.
    Pursuant to Section 35(b)
    of the
    Act, the Board must issue the variance within two
    (2) days of
    this filing.
    Specifically, the Agency recommends that we grant General
    Electric a (forty—five) 45-day provisional variance for its
    LaSalle County facility from the total residual chlorine
    (TRC)
    effluent requirements,
    as set forth in 35 Ill. Adm. Code
    304. 141(a) and 302.208 (d),
    for the period from December 28, 1995
    and continuing until completion and commencement of operation of
    the dechlorination facility, not longer than 45 days.
    The Agency recommends that the Board grant the requested
    provisional variance with specified conditions.
    The Agency
    anticipates that the requested provisional variance would have
    minimal environmental impact on the receiving stream.
    The Agency
    is
    unaware
    of
    any public water supplies that the requested
    provisional variance would adversely impact.
    The Agency
    maintains that a grant of a provisional variance would violate no
    federal lawg.
    The Agency finds that a denial of the requestQd
    provisional variance would create an arbitrary or unreasonable
    hardship on the petitioner.
    Provisional variances are by their very nature temporary.
    The responsibilities of the Agency and the Board in these short-
    term provisional variances are different from the
    responsibilities in standard variances.
    (~
    415 ILCS 5/35
    (b)
    &
    36(c)).
    In provisional variances it is the responsibility of the
    Agency to make the technical determinations and finding of
    arbitrary or unreasonable hardship.
    The Board’s responsibility
    2
    is to adopt a formal order, to assure the formal maintenance of
    the record, to assure the enforceability of the variance, and to
    provide notification of the action by a press release.
    Having received the Agency recommendation finding that a
    denial of the requested relief would impose an arbitrary or
    unreasonable hardship, the Board hereby grants the petitioner a
    provisional variance from the TRC effluent requirements,
    as set
    forth in 35 Ill. Adm. Code 304.141(a)
    and 302.208(d), on the
    following conditions:
    1.
    The term of this provisional variance shall commence on
    December 28, 1995 and expire upon General Electric’s
    completion and commencement of operation of the
    dechlorination facility, or after forty-five
    (45) days have
    elapsed, whichever comes first;
    2.
    General Electric shall meet an interim TRC limit of 2.0
    mg/i daily maximum concentration limit measured at the point
    specified in the NPDES permit;
    3.
    The petitioner shall notify Charles Corley of the
    Agency’s Rockford office by telephone at 815/987-7755, when
    construction of the dechlorination facility is completed,
    and the petitioner shall confirm this notice in writing,
    addressed as follows:
    Illinois Environmental Protection Agency~
    Bureau of Water, Compliance Assurance Section
    Compliance Assurance Section
    2200 Churchill Road
    P.O. Box 19276
    Springfield, Illinois
    62794—9276
    Attention:
    Susan Davison
    4.
    The petitioner shall operate its facility during the
    term of this provisional variance in a manner that assures
    the best effluent possible; and
    5.
    The petitioner shall execute a copy of a Certificate of
    Acceptance of this provisional variance and forward that
    copy to the Agency addressed as is the written notice
    required in the above condition; the petitioner shall
    forward that copy within ten
    (10) days of the date of this
    order of the Board, and the Certificate of Acceptance shall
    take the following form:
    ‘3
    CERTIFICATION
    I
    (We),
    hereby accept and agree to be bound by all terms
    and conditions of the order of the Pollution
    Control Board in PCB 96-1~9,January 18,
    1996.
    Petitioner
    Authorized Agent
    Title
    Date
    IT IS SO ORDERED
    I, Dorothy M. Gunn,
    Clerk of the Illinois Pollution Control
    Board, do hereby certify ~k1atthe above order was adopted on the
    /Ii
    day of __________________________,
    1996, by a vote of
    7-0
    61
    Dorothy M,-7tunn, Clerk
    Illinois1Pollution Control Board

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