ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
    September 15, 1994
    CITY OF KNOXVILLE,
    )
    Petitioner,
    v.
    )
    PCB 94—254
    )
    (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)), the City of Knoxville has requested
    that the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (Agency)
    recommend that the Board grant a provisional variance to allow
    the City of Knoxville to continue operating during a period of
    wastewater treatment plant repairs. Such request for a
    provisional variance and the Notification of Recommendation was
    filed with the Board by the Agency on Wednesday, September 14,
    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 the City of Knoxville in
    order to allow it to continue operating during a period of
    wastewater treatment plant repairs.
    Specifically, the Agency recommends that we grant the City
    of Knoxville a (forty-five) 45-day provisional variance for its
    Knox County facility from the excess flow limitation
    requirements, as set forth in 35 Ill. Adm. Code 304.141, for the
    period from when the petitioner begins painting by removing its
    activated sludge treatment unit from service, and continuing
    until the petitioner returns that unit to service, 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.
    2
    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 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. Adm. Code 304.141, on the
    following conditions:
    1. The term of this provisional variance shall commence
    when the petitioner, the City of Knoxville, initiates
    painting its wastewater treatment plant, by bypassing the
    first of its activated sludge treatment units, 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
    petitioner shall be allowed to discharge excess flow from
    its treatment plant over 0.5 MGD from Outfall OO1A and shall
    be limited to the effluent limits as stated in its NPDE5
    permit;
    3. The petitioner shall notify Ken Newman of the Agency’s
    Peoria Regional office by telephone, at (309)693—5463, when
    the first activated sludge treatment unit is removed from
    service and again when the last unit is returned to service,
    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
    4. The petitioner shall perform the necessary painting and
    repair work as expeditiously as possible so as to minimize
    the period of time the treatment units are out of service;
    The petitioner shall execute a copy of a Certificate of
    3
    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 94-254, September 15, 1994.
    Petitioner
    Authorized Agent
    Title
    Date
    IT IS SO ORDERED.
    I, Dorothy M. Gunn, Clerk of the Illinois Pollution Control
    Board, do hereby certif~thatthe above order was adopted on the
    /~~-
    day of ___________________________, 1994, by a vote of
    ~2
    C~ •
    C”
    Ill
    Control Board

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