ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
    June 1,
    1995
    UNITED STATES TOBACCO
    MANUFACTURING
    COMPANY,
    )
    Petitioner,
    v.
    )
    PCB
    95—160
    (Provisional Variance-Air)
    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)), United States Tobacco Manufacturing
    Company
    (USTMC) has requested that the Illinois Environmental
    Protection Agency (Agency) recommend that the Board grant a
    provisional variance to allow USTMC’s tobacco processing facility
    to continue operating even though it did not install operational
    emission capture and control equipment volatile organic material
    emissions (VOM)
    by April 28,
    1995.
    This request for a
    provisional variance and the Notification of Recommendation was
    filed with the Board by the Agency on Tuesday, May 30,
    1995.
    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 USTMC a
    thirty-one (31)-day provisional variance for its facility located
    at 11601 Copenhagan Court, Franklin Park, Cook County, Illinois
    from the VOM requirements for “Other Emission Units” of the air
    pollution control requirements, as set forth
    in 35 Ill.
    Athu. Code
    218, Subpart TT, specifically,
    35 Ill.
    Adm. Code 218.986, for the
    period beginning April 28,
    1995,
    and continuing for thirty-one
    (31)-days or until the required emission VOM capture and control
    equipment
    (a regenerative thermal oxidizer)
    is installed,
    whichever comes first.
    This recommendation is essentially that the Board extend a
    previously-granted provisional variance that expired April 28,
    1995.
    The docket number of the previous provisional variance was
    PCB 95-141, granted on May 11,
    1995.
    Upon receipt of the request, the Agency issued its
    recommendation, notifying the Board that the failure to grant the
    requested thirty-one
    (31)—day provisional variance would impose
    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

    2
    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
    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 notifying the
    Board that a denial of the requested relief would impose an
    arbitrary or unreasonable hardship, the Board hereby grants the
    petitioner
    a provisional variance from 35 Ill. Adm. Code 218.986,
    subject to the following conditions:
    1.
    The term of this provisional variance shall commence on
    April 28,
    1995,
    and continue for thirty—one
    (31)—days or
    until the required regenerative thermal oxidizer is
    installed, whichever comes first.
    2.
    The petitioner shall notify the Agency upon
    installation and startup of the regenerative thermal
    oxidizer, by sending notification addressed as follows:
    Mr.
    Brooke
    Peterson
    Bureau of Air
    Illinois Environmental Protection Agency
    2200 Churchill Road,
    P.O. Box 19276
    Springfield, Illinois
    62794—9276
    IT IS SO ORDERED.
    I, Dorothy M. Gunn,
    Clerk of the Illinois Pollution Control
    Board, do hereby certif
    hat the above order was adopted on the
    /-~‘-~
    day of ____________________________,
    1995, by a vote of
    _______
    7
    Dorothy M.
    G
    ,
    Clerk
    Illinois P0
    1 tion Control Board

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