ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
    March 9, 1995
    SHELL OIL COMPANY,
    )
    )
    Petitioner,
    V.
    )
    PCB 95—86
    )
    (Provisional Variance-Air)
    ILLINOIS ENVIRONMENTAL
    )
    PROTECTION AGENCY,
    )
    Respondent.
    ORDER OF THE BOARD (by M. McFawn):
    Pursuant to Section 35(b) of the Environmental Protection
    Act (Act) (415 ILCS 5/35(b)), Shell Oil Company has requested
    that the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (Agency)
    recommend that the Board grant a provisional variance allow
    several of Shell Oil Company’s gasoline dispensing operations
    (service stations) to continue operating even though it will not
    install operational vapor recovery equipment by the expiration of
    a prior provisional variance on January 29, 1995. This
    provisional variance is being requested because the stations will
    be demolished, and will be rebuilt and equipped with Stage II
    gasoline vapor recovery equipment during the rebuild. The
    Notification of Recommendation and the request for a provisional
    variance were filed with the Board by the Agency on Tuesday,
    March 7, 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 Shell Oil
    Company a forty—five (45)-day provisional variance for three of
    its facilities located in Cook County, in the Chicago
    metropolitan statistical area from the Stage II vapor recovery
    requirements, as set forth in 35 Ill. Adm. Code 218.586, for the
    period beginning February 8, 1995 and continuing for forty-five
    (45)-days or until demolition commences at the three facilities,
    whichever comes first.
    This recommendation is essentially that the Board extend a
    previously-granted forty-five (45)-day provisional variance that
    expired January 29, 1995. The docket number of the previous
    provisional variance was PCB 95-35, granted on January 11, 1995.
    That prior provisional variance was itself an extension of the
    forty—five (45)—day provisional variance granted on December 1,
    1994 in PCB 94—319.’
    Section 36(c) of the Act imposes limitations on the
    Board’s ability to extend a provisional variance:
    2
    The Agency’s provisional variance recommendation states that
    Mobil has requested a provisional variance on behalf of numerous
    of its service stations in the Chicago area, located as follows:
    County
    City or Village Street Address
    Cook
    Arlington Heights 934 S. Arlington Heights Rd
    Cook
    Arlington Heights 3 West Algonquin Road
    Cook
    Glenview
    2000 West Willow Road
    Upon receipt of the request, the Agency issued its
    recommendation, notifying the Board that the failure to grant the
    requested forty—five (45)—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
    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 218.586,
    subject to the following conditions:
    1. The term of this provisional variance shall commence on
    Any provisional variance granted by the Board pursuant
    to subsection (b) of Section 35 shall be for a period
    of time not to exceed 45 days. Upon receipt of a
    recommendation from the Agency to extend this time
    period, the Board shall grant up to an additional 45
    days. The provisional variances granted to any one
    person shall not exceed a total of 90 days during any
    calendar year.
    Since the variance granted in PCB 95-35 expired January 29, 1995,
    and fewer than ninety (90) days will have elapsed in this
    calendar year by the expiration of the variance requested in the
    present petition, the Board interprets Section 36(c) as allowing
    Shell Oil Company the Agency-recommended forty—five (45)-day
    extension.
    3
    February 8, 1995 and continue for forty-five (45)-days or
    until demolition commences at the three facilities,
    whichever comes first.
    2. The petitioner shall notify the Agency upon
    installation of the Stage II gasoline vapor recovery
    equipment, by sending notification addressed as follows:
    Mr. Terry Sweitzer, P.E.
    Manager, Air Monitoring Section
    Illinois Environmental Protection Agency
    Division of Air Pollution Control
    P.O. Box 19276
    Springfield, Illinois 62794—9276
    IT IS SO ORDERED.
    I, Dorothy M. Gunn, Clerk of the Illinois Pollution Control
    Boar4, do hereby certify that the above order was adopted on the
    ‘~‘~-
    day of
    __________________________,
    1995, by a vote of
    I
    Control Board

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