ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
    March
    3,
    1994
    ILLINOIS POWER
    COMPANY
    (Baldwin Facility),
    )
    Petitioner,
    v.
    PCB 94—81
    (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)), Illinois Power Co. has requested
    that the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (Agency)
    recommend that the Board grant a provisional variance to allow
    Illinois Power Co. to continue operating during dredging
    operations.
    Such request for a provisional variance and the
    Notification of Recommendation was filed with the Board by the
    Agency on Wednesday, March
    2,
    1994.
    Pursuant to Section 35(b)
    of
    the Act, the Board must issue the variance within two
    (2) days of
    this filing.
    Pursuant to Section 35(b)
    of the Environmental Protection
    Act
    (Act)
    (415 ILCS 5/35(b)), the Illinois Environmental
    Protection Agency
    (Agency), by and through its Director, Mary A.
    Gade,
    seeks a provisional variance for Illinois Power Co.
    in
    order to allow it to continue operating during dredging
    operations.
    Specifically, the Agency recommends that we grant Illinois
    Power Co.
    a forty-five (45)-day provisional variance for its
    facility located in St. Clair and Randolph Counties facility from
    the suspended solids
    (TSS) effluent requirements, as set forth in
    35 Ill.
    Adm.
    Code 304
    •
    120 and 304.141(a), for the period from
    when the petitioner begins dredging operations in the ash pond
    and continuing for no 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
    2
    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.
    (See 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 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 Ill.
    Adin. Code 304.120 and
    304.141(a), on the following conditions:
    1.
    The term of this provisional variance shall commence
    when the petitioner,
    Illinois Power Co., initiates dredging
    operations in the ash pond, and it shall expire on the date
    the petitioner completes the required maintenance work,
    or
    after forty-five (45)-days have elapsed, whichever comes
    first;
    2.
    During the term of this provisional variance, the
    effluent from the petitioner’s treatment plant shall not
    exceed concentrations of 75 mg/i TSS for a monthly average
    and 150 mg/l TSS on a daily maximum basis.
    3.
    The petitioner shall notify Eric Merz of the Agency’s
    Collinsville Regional office by telephone, at 618/346—5120,
    when the dredging operation begins and again when the
    dredging operation ends, 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:
    Barbara Conner
    4.
    The petitioner shall perform the necessary maintenance
    and modification work as expeditiously as possible and
    3
    operate its plant during the term of this provisional
    variance in a manner that assures the best treatment
    practicable; and
    5.
    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 94-81, March
    3, 1994.
    Petitioner
    Authorized Agent
    Title
    Date
    IT IS SO ORDERED.
    I, Dorothy M. Gunn,
    Clerk of the Illinois Pollution Control
    Board, do hereby certify that the above order was adopted on the
    ~
    day of _________________________,
    1994,
    by a vote of
    ______.
    ~
    ~L.
    Dorothy M.,,~unn,Clerk
    Illinois P~llutionControl Board

    Back to top