ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
March
3,
1994
EMRO
MARKETING COMPANY,
)
)
Petitioner,
)
v.
)
PCB 94—77
(Provisional Variance)
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)), Emro Marketing Company has
requested that the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency
(Agency) recommend that the Board grant a provisional variance to
allow several of Emro Marketing Company’s gasoline dispensing
operations
(service stations) to continue operating even though
they did not install operational vapor recovery equipment by
November
1,
1993.
Such request for a provisional variance and
the Notification of Recommendation was filed with the Board by
the Agency on Tuesday, March 1,
1994.
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
Emro
Marketing Company a thirty-seven (37)-day provisional variance
for 30 of its facilities located in five
(5) counties 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 23,
1994,
and continuing for
thirty—seven
(37) days or until the required vapor recovery
equipment is installed, whichever comes first.
This recommendation is essentially that the Board extend a
previously-granted forty-five (45)-day provisional variance that
expired January 29,
1994.
The docket number of the previous
provisional variance was PCB 94-13, granted on January
6,
1994.
That prior provisional variance was itself an extension of the
forty-five (45)-day provisional variance granted on October 27,
1993 in PCB 93—201.’
Section 36(c) of the Act imposes limitations on the
Board’s ability to extend a provisional variance:
Any provisional variance granted by the Board pursuant
2
The Agency’s provisional variance recommendation states that
Emro Marketing Company has requested a provisional variance on
behalf of numerous of its service stations in the Chicago area,
located as follows:
County
Number of Stations
Cook
10
Will
10
DuPage
6
Lake
2
Kane
2
The addresses of those stations are listed as follows:
County
City or Village
Street Address
Cook
Alsip
127th
& Pulaski
Cook
Countryside
5555 Brainerd
Cook
Evergreen Park
3040 West 95th Street
Cook
Homewood
18002 Haisted Street
Cook
Olympia Fields
3602 West 211th Street
Cook
Olympia Fields
19880 Crawford
Cook
Palatine
402 East Dundee
Cook
pa.os
Hills
10300 South Roberts Road
Cook
Schaumburg
421 West Wise
Cook
Schaumburg
800 West Golf Road
DuPage
Bloomingdale
436 West Army Trail Road
DuPage
Hinsdale
9059 Route 83
DuPage
Lisle
6490 College Drive
DuPage
Lombard
21 West 400 North Avenue
DuPage
Westmont
6241 South Cass Street
DuPage
Naperville
631 North Route 59
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 94-13 expired January 29,
1994,
and fewer than ninety
(90) days elapsed in this calendar year,
the Board interprets Section 36(c)
as allowing Emro Marketing
Company the Agency—recommended thirty-seven (37)-day extension.
The Board notes that the Agency’s recommendation indicates
that the Lombard and Westmont facilities were not involved in the
prior provisional variance granted Emro Marketing Company in PCB
94—13.
3
Kane
Elgin
1570 Big Timber
Kane
West Dundee
115 North 8th Street
Lake
Gurnee
3688 West Grand
Lake
North Chicago
2850 Skokie Highway
Will
Bolingbrook
352 State Route 53
Will
Bolingbrook
499 West Broughton
Will
Channahon
2812 Eames Street
Will
Crete
1120 Dixie Highway
Will
Frankfort
7218 West Lincoln Highway
Will
Joliet
310 Manhatton Road
Will
Lockport
314 South State Street
Will
New Lenox
301 West Maple Street
Will
New Lenox
800 West Maple
Will
Shorewood
800 Brook Forest Avenue
Upon receipt of the request,
the Agency issued its
recommendation, notifying the Board that the failure to grant the
requested thirty-seven (37)-day provisional variance would impose
an arbitrary or unreasonable hardship on the petitioner.
The
Agency recommendation states that installation of Stage II vapor
recovery equipment at the
Einro
Marketing Company facilities is
not possible by the November
1,
1993 deadline for compliance
because Emro Marketing Company has contracted for the purchase
and installation of Hasstech vapor recovery equipment,
but that
equipment and the crews necessary to install it was not available
before the compliance deadline.
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 tinreasonable 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
February 23,
1994,
and it shall expire on the date the
petitioner completes the required installation of vacuum
assist Stage II vapor recovery equipment, or after thirty-
seven
(37) days have elapsed, whichever comes first;
2.
The petitioner shall notify the Agency of the
installation of the vapor recovery equipment,
by sending
4
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
Board, ,,do hereby certif
that the above order was adopted on the
JA.~X~
day of _________________________,
1994, by a vote of
~
Dorothy M. Gq1~’, Clerk
Illinois Polj~tionControl Board