ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
October
14,
1971
TROJAN
-
U.S. POWDER
v.
)
H
71—57, 71—58
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
Supplementary Opinion and Order of the Board
(by Mr. Currie):
On June
14,
1971 we entered an order granting in part
Trojan’s request for permission to burn explosive wastes despite
the open burning regulations.
Trojan has appealed
the limitations
of our order and,
pursuant to Supreme Court Rule
335,
asks us for
a rehearing and stay of our order.
First are two matters
of clarification.
The order directed
the company to “close”
its Marion plant by August
1,
1971.
This was
on the basis of the company’s representation that manufacturing
at
that site would cease by that time,
and it was
not intended to forbid
continued use of the site for storage.
The order
is amended to
provide for the cessation of manufacturing rather than £he closing
of the physical plant.
Second,
there was ambiguity
in the order as to whether or
not the company could burn the Marion wastes within the wildlife
refuge during the period
of the variance.
The Board voted unanimously
to allow those wastes
to be burned;
two members were of the opinion
that the wastes should be trucked outside the wildlife refuge
for burning, but the majority,
in light of representations
as
to
a safety hazard in trucking, held that burning could
take place
at
the plant site inside the refuge.
The opinion
is hereby modified
to make
that clear,
and
the clause
“but Trojan shall not burn
in
the wildlife refuge”
is deleted from the third paragraph on page
two of that opinion.
A third point concerns
the amount of wastes that may be
burned at the Wolf Lake plant.
The
order, relying on
a statement
on page 18 of the transcript
(#
71-58), limited burning to 100
pounds per day.
As Trojan points out in its present motion, this
is
a misinterpretation of the record,
for the 100 pounds there mentioned
were in addition to an estimated 500
to
700 pounds per day of paper
refuse contaminated with explosives
(R.
10).
As it was
our intention
to allow burning of the wastes generated
in Trojan’s normal operations
2
603
pending discovery of
a preferable solution to the safety problem,
we amend the order and opinion to allow the burning at Wolf Lake
of up
to 1000 pounds of nonsolid explosive contaminated waste per
day and up to 100 pounds of solid explosive waste
per day.
Trojan also challenges that provision of our order requiring
the submission ofafirm program for alternative means of disposing
of waste from the Wolf Lake plant without open burning.
We entered
this order on the basis of an Agency recommendation alleging that
the wastes
in question were similar to those of another company
that had discovered
such an alternative.
But Trojan’s motion contests
this allegation.
Under normal circumstances we would say that
the
time to raise such issues is
at the hearing, but since the Agency’s
recommendation was not filed until
the date of the hearing we do
not believe Trojan had an adequate opportunity to respond.
We
shall therefore grant
a new hearing on this question, extending
the Wolf Lake variance until we have taken further action on the
basis of evidence there received.
Trojan further objects to the provision of the order forbidding
the use of smoky materials to
ignite
the
fire.
This
provision
was based upon the above assumption that
the waste was similar to
that
in another case
in which no smoky materials were necessary.
l~gainwe think Trojan should be given the opportunity to show
this
is
not
so,
and in the meantime,
on the basis
of the representations
in
its motion, sworn
to by
th’~plant manager, we shall allow the use
of
#
2 oil
for igniting
fires whenever reasonably necessary,
in light
of
the danger of continuing to store
the explosive materials.
The company requests that we allow quarterly instead of the
i~onthlyreports required by
the original order,
Normally we would
riot consider such
a request after completion of the case,
but since
,~e are reexamining the order in other respects and since we believe
quarterly reports will suffice we grant the request.
Finally, Trojan recites that it has on hand
at Marion and
wishes
to burn
the following explosive wastes:
35,000 pounds of
overage dynamite;
30,000 to 40,000 pounds of contaminated paper
and boxes;
335 cubic yards
of contaminated earth from ditches used
in the discontinued torpex operation;
15,500 torpex metal tubes
and 125
to
150 metal drums.
Permission
is sought
to burn these over
an eight—week period.
It is unclear just how much of this waste
was covered by
our original order, which contemplated the burning
of materials generated
in the last manufacturing operations and
the final cleanup of
the site.
The original record
is not very
clear as
to the amounts of material in issue,
It did make clear
that about 90
of the wastes generated were paper
and only 10
overage explosives,
in contrast to the present situation
(R.
7,
36,
56).
Nevertheless,
it seems that these materials are basically
the remains
of the manufacturing operation and that their destruction
2— 604
by open burning was contemplated by our initial order.
We initially
allowed only one month after termination of manufacturing to dispose
of this waste, but Trojan tells
us another eight weeks
are required,
Because of the safety hazard we shall allow this extension,
especially
since the initial record did not indicate how long
it would take
to complete the cleanup.
In addition, however, there
is what appears to bean
entirely
new variance request on which
a hearing must be held.
Trojan had
not indicated in the initial hearing that there would be any need
for further burning after termination of the manufacturing operations
in July
1971 and the attendant cleanup discussed above.
Now, however,
it is reported that Trojan intends to keep the plant open for sale
of the large amounts
of explosives still stored there.
The re-
quest is to burn about 10,000 pounds of overage dynamite per year
due to deterioration while in storage.
The burning would take place
in two five-day sessions
a year.
No end date is specified.
This request goes substantially beyond what we considered at
the first hearing,
and
a ~ew hearing will be held.
The Board’s
permission to burn in
a wildlife refuge, which of all places ought
to be given special protection from pollution,
was based on the
belief,
drawn
from
the
record,
that
this
was
to
be
a
terminal
operation,
and
a rapidly terminal one.
Indeed the company said that
“we do not expect to return next year
for
a further variance, either
as to water, contaminated paper and materials
or explosives.
In
other words, we expect the plant to be closed within
a year”
(R.
10,
37),
The
order
and
opinion
of
June
14 are hereby modified to the
extent noted in this opinion.
The
case will
be renumbered and
reassigned for
a further hearing.
I, Regina
E,
Ryan,
Clerk
of the Pollution Control Board, certify
that the above Supplementary Opinion and Order
of the Board
was adopted this
14
day
of
October
,
1971.
2— 605