ILLINOIS
POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
May 18, 1995
PITTSBURGR
TUBE COMPANY,
)
)
Petitioner,
)
)
v.
)
PCB 95—149
(Provisional Variance—Water)
ILLINOIS ENVIRONMENTAL
)
PROTECTION EN,
)
)
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)), Pittsburgh Tube Company has
requested that the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency
(Agency) recommend that the Board grant a provisional variance to
allow Pittsburgh Thbe Company to continue operating during a
period of wastewater treatment plant lagoon deactivation and
cleaning to provide space for a planned production facility
expansion. Such request for a provisional variance and the
Notification of Recommendation was filed with the Board by the
Agency on Wednesday, May 17, 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 Pittsburgh
Tube company a (forty-five) 45-day provisional variance for its
Livingston County facility from the boron (B), zinc (Zn), pH, and
total dissolved solids (TDS) effluent requirements, as set forth
in 35 Iii. Adzn. Code 302.208, 304.125, and 304.141(a), for the
period from when the petitioner begins dewatering its wastewater
treatment lagoons and continuing until the dewatering is
completed, but not for longer than
45 days.
The Agency recommends that the Board grant the requested
provisional variance with specified conditions. The Agency
agrees that the repairs are necessary. 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 laws. The Agency finds that a denial of the requested
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) &
2
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 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 35 Iii. Adm. Code 302.208, as it
relates to TDS and boron water quality standards, and the
effluent limitations of 304.125 (pH) and 304.141(a), on the
following conditions:
1. The term of this provisional variance shall commence in
May or June, 1995 when the petitioner, Pittsburgh Tube
Company, initiates dewatering its wastewater treatment
lagoons, and it shall expire on the date the petitioner has
drained those lagoons, or after forty-five (45) days have
elapsed, whichever comes first;
2. The petitioner shall notify Steve Baldwin of the
Agency’s Champaign Regional office by telephone, at 217-333-
836?, when it begins dewatering its lagoons and again when
the dewatering is completed, and the petitioner shall
confirm this notice in writing within five (5) days,
addressed as follows:
Illinois Environmental Protection Agency
Division of Water Pollution Control
Compliance Assurance Section
2200 Churchill Road
P.O. Box 19276
Springfield, Illinois 62794—9276
Attention: Mark T. Books
3. During the term of this provisional variance, the
effluent from the petitioner’s treatment plant effluent from
outfall 001 shall not exceed concentrations of 10.0 mg/i
boron (B), 0.96 mg/l zinc (Zn), or 1850 mg/l TDS (each on a
weekly average concentration basis), and the pH shall remain
in the range of 6.0 to 9.7 at all times;
4. During the term of this provisional variance, the
petitioner shall monitor the boron (B), zinc (Zn), and TDS
concentrations at the point of complete mixing in the stream
once each week; take daily samples for boron (B), zinc (Zn),
TDS, and pH at outfall 001 daily while discharging; and
monitor for all other limits as indicated by its NPDES
permit;
3
5. During the term of this provisional variance, the
petitioner shall drain no more than 84,000 gallons per day
from the lagoons, and shall discharge only on days when
sufficient upstream flow is present to ensure that complete
mixing will occur within the receiving stream mixing zone,
as documented in its request for this provisional variance;
6. 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:
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 95—149, May 18, 1995.
Petitioner
Authorized Agent
Title
Date
IT IS SO ORDERED.
I, Dorothy M. Gunn, Clerk of the Illinois Pollution Control
Boa d do hereby certify that the above order was adopted on the
______
day of ___________________________, 1995, by a vote of
~
A.
DorothyIllinoisN.Pol~,,ütionG~n, ClerkControlt
Board