ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
March 31,
1994
COMMONWEALTH
EDISON
)
(DRESDEN
GENERATING STATION),
)
)
Petitioner,
v.
)
PCB 94—104
)
(Provisional Variance)
ILLINOIS ENVIRONMENTAL
)
PROTECTION AGENCY,
)
)
Respondent.
ORDER OF THE BOARD
(by J. Theodore Meyer):
Pursuant to Section 35(b) of the Environmental Protection
Act
(Act)
(415 ILCS 5/35(b)), Commonwealth Edison has requested
that the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (Agency)
recommend that the Board grant a provisional variance to allow
Commonwealth Edison to continue operating during a period of
electric generating facility modifications/permanent electrical
system repairs.
Such request for a provisional variance and the
Notification of Recommendation was filed with the Board by the
Agency on Wednesday, March 30,
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 Commonwealth Edison in
order to allow it to continue operating during a period of
electric generating facility modifications/permanent electrical
system repairs.
Specifically, the Agency recommends that we grant
Commonwealth Edison a twenty-one
(21)—day provisional variance
for its Grundy County facility from the thermal discharge
standards in 35 Iii. Adm. Code 302.211(d) and 304.141(c).
This
provisional variance shall begin no later than May 31,
1994 when
the petitioner begins repair to its electric generating facility,
by removing its forced lift station from service, and continuing
until the petitioner returns that unit to service, but not for
longer than 21 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
2
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.
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 responsibil-
ities 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 302.211(d) and
304.141(c),
on the following conditions:
1.
The term of this provisional variance shall begin no
later than May 31,
1994 when the petitioner Commonwealth
Edison,
initiates repairs to its electric generating
facility by removing its lift station transformer from
service and it shall expire on the date the petitioner
completes the required maintenance work, or after twenty—one
(21) days have elapsed, whichever comes first;
2.
During the term of this provisional variance,
Petitioner shall not exceed a final discharge temperature of
24 degrees F above the ambient water temperatures in the Des
Plaines and Kankakee Rivers at the Petitioner’s river intake
structure location.
3.
The petitioner shall notify Maureen Brehmer of the
Agency’s Maywood Regional office by telephone, at 708/338-
7900
,
when it removes its forced lift station from service
and when it returns the unit 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:
Dan Ray
3
4.
During the term of this provisional variance,
Petitioner shall continuously monitor the temperature at the
intake structure,
at the discharge point and at the Dresden
lock and dam as indicated by the Petitioner in its variance
request.
5.
During the term of this provisional variance,
Petitioner shall operate the two boiling water reactors at
reduced loads so that the maximum amount of cooling water to
be discharged daily will be 940 MGD.
6.
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 94-104, March 31,
1994.
Petitioner
Authorized Agent
Title
Date
IT IS SO ORDERED.
4
I, Dorothy M.
Gunn, Clerk of the Illinois Pollution Control
Board,
do hereby certify that the above order was adopted on the
3/_l~4-
day of ____________________________,
1994,
by a vote of
~
Dorothy M. p~nn,Clerk
Illinois P~)(lutionControl Board