ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
February 17,
1994
STATE OIL COMPANY,
)
Petitioner,
v.
)
PCB 94—66
)
(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)), State Oil Company has requested
that the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency
(Agency)
recommend that the Board grant a provisional variance to allow
several of State Oil 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,
February 15,
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 State Oil
Company a forty-five
(45)-day provisional variance for fifteen
(15)
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 January 30,
1994,
and continuing for
forty—five
(45) 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—6, 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_198.1
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
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
2
The Agency’s provisional variance recommendation states that
State Oil 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
Lake
7
Cook
3
McHenry
3
DuPage
1
Kendall
1
The addresses of those stations are listed as follows:
County
City or Village
Street Address
Cook
Palatine
800 S. Plum Grove Road
Cook
Schiller Park
9340 Irving Park Road
Cook
Spring Grove
2551 North Route 12
DuPage
Addison
246 W. Lake Street
Kendall
Montgomery
426 N. Route 25
Lake
Antioch
485 North Avenue
Lake
Antioch
24480 W. Grass Lake Road
Lake
Fox Lake
20 N. Route 12
Lake
Lincoinshire
435 S. Milwaukee Ave.
Lake
Round Lake
1175 W. Route 134
Lake
Volo
31727 N. Highway 12
Lake
Wauconda
1200 North Rand Road
Mcaenry
Crystal Lake
5604 5. Route 31
McHenry
Mdllenry
3514 South Route 31
McHenry
Mcflenry
4713 W. Elm Street
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.
The
Agency recommendation states that installation of Stage II vapor
recovery equipment at the State Oil Company facilities is not
possible by the November
1,
1993 deadline for compliance because
severe weather conditions have made it impossible to complete the
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 94-6 expired January 6,
1994,
and fewer than ninety
(90) days elapsed in this calendar year,
the Board interprets Section 36(c)
as allowing State Oil Company
the Agency-recommended forty-five (45)-day extension.
3
outdoor activites necessary for the installation of vapor
recovery equipment for its gasoline dispensers, and that
equipment and the crews necessary to install it were 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.
(~g415 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
January 30,
1994,
and it shall expire on the date the
petitioner completes the required installation of vacuum
assist Stage II vapor recovery equipment, or after forty—
five
(45) days have elapsed, whichever comes first;
2.
The petitioner shall notify the Agency of the
installation of the 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 N.
Gunn, Clerk of the Illinois Pollution Control
Board, do hereby certi
hat the above order was adopted on the
/7X?~.J day of ___________________________,
1994, by a vote of
/2
A.
~
Dorothy
14. ,~nn, Clerk
Illinois Pojlution Control Board