ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
    February 28, 1991
    IN THE MATTER OF:
    )
    GROUNDWATER PROTECTION:
    REGULATIONS
    )
    OF EXISTING AND NEW ACTIVITIES WITHIN
    )
    R89-5
    SETBACK ZONES
    AND
    REGULATED RECHARGE
    )
    (Rulemaking)
    AREAS
    (35 ILL.
    AD?!. CODE 601,
    615,
    616,
    )
    AND
    617) (GROUNDWATER TECHNICAL
    )
    STANDARDS)
    )
    ORDER OF THE
    BOARD
    (by R.C.
    Fleinal):
    On February 11,
    1991,
    the NcHenry County Defenders,
    Citizens
    for a Better Environment, and the Illinois Chapter of the Sierra
    Club (“Defenders”) filed a i-notion with the Board to reissue First
    Notice and take other steps to expedite completion of this
    proceeding.
    No replies have been
    received
    by the Board, although
    on February
    6,
    1991,
    the Illinois Environmental Regulatory Group
    (“IERG”)
    filed
    a response to
    a similar request made by the
    Defenders to the Hearing Officer and Attending Board
    Member1.
    The Board denies the motion,
    insofar as it requests
    immediate reissuance of a First Notice Opinion and Order.
    Instead, the Board will expedite this proceeding in the manner
    outlined below.
    As in PC
    1/18,
    the Defenders suggest courses of action on how
    to proceed with the docket at this point,
    including sending the
    rules
    as proposed at First Notice to a second First Notice.
    The
    Hearing Officer
    in this proceeding recently received information
    by telephone that the EcIS is expected to be filed by the first
    week of March.
    Although in PC #18 Defenders advocate proceeding
    without the EcIS,
    the Board believes that it would be best to
    enter that information into the record and hold the additional
    required hearing on the EcIS
    (See Section 27(b)
    of the
    Environmental Protection Act),
    before proceeding to a second
    First Notice.
    If the Board went to First Notice now, and then
    proceeded with additional EcIS and merit hearings which pointed
    out the necessity of making major changes to the proposal,
    a
    third First Notice would be required.
    The Board would like to
    avoid making that additional
    step,
    a step which would
    unacceptably delay this proceeding.
    That request was docketed as Public Comment #18
    (“PC #18”)
    and is also considered by the Board here.
    119—123
    —2—
    The Board believes this course of action would save State
    resources by not ignoring a report which cost many State dollars
    as well as gaining the prospect of economic information for the
    record.
    This is especially true with the EcIS so soon to be
    filed.
    Therefore, by separate Hearing Officer Order of this date,
    a
    hearing is set on the ECIS and any additional merit issues for
    April
    3,
    1991.
    This should allow for proper attention to be
    given to any EcIS filed by March 15,
    1991; should the EcIS not be
    filed by this date,
    the Board will then re-entertain the
    possibility of proceeding to a second First Notice without it.
    The Hearing Officer is instructed to schedule any subsequent
    comment periods within a tight timeframe,
    but in accordance with
    the mandatory comment requirements of the Administrative
    Procedure Act
    (“APA”).
    It is worth noting that the APA requires
    a minimum 45-day comment period after the publication of proposed
    rules
    in the Illinois Register
    (Ill. Rev.
    Stat.
    1989 ch 127,
    par.
    1005.01).
    Therefore,
    it is impossible to set tighter time frames
    than that,
    as appears to be suggested by Pc #18 and the instant
    motion.
    The Board seeks to have the entire R89-5 rules adopted as
    expeditiously as possible.
    Splitting some subparts and putting
    them in separate dockets as Defenders suggest would not
    necessarily gain time,
    and,
    in fact,
    could require more time due
    to the multiple processing necessary than if the entiretyof the
    proposal were adopted at once.
    The Board also seeks to avoid
    piecemeal adoption of these regulations which could lead to
    confusion in implementation and enforcement.
    Also it is not
    clear that Subpart B could be so easily split off without other
    parts of the regulation being affected.
    The Board,
    like the Defenders,
    is concerned about the rate
    of progress of this proceeding and of the complementary
    rulemaking underway in R89-l4; the Board takes all of its
    decision deadlines seriously.
    Nevertheless, the Board would
    venture that the pace of these two rulemakings has been
    controlled not by a lack of diligence upon the part of the many
    persons involved in them,
    but rather by an extremely high level
    of diligence.
    So many have been the conferences, proposals,
    hearings, comments, replies, and deliberations that it is
    unlikely that anyone could have correctly forecast the time
    necessary to sequence and otherwise properly accommodate them.
    The Board believes that the benefit of this high level of
    interest and participation will be a higher quality set of rules
    than would otherwise have resulted.
    For this reason the Board
    has been willing to accommodate first to the time demands of the
    proceedings, rather than to the demands of the clock.
    The Board
    further believes that,
    at least for now, this strategy should not
    be set aside.
    119—124
    —3—
    IT IS SO ORDERED.
    I, Dorothy M. Gunn, Clerk of the Illinois Pollution Control
    Boar
    hereby certify
    t the above Order was adopted on the
    ________
    day of
    .Z~~r-c~
    ,
    1991,
    by a vote of
    ____*
    ci
    c~O~c
    -~
    AU
    Dorothy M./~unn,Clerk
    Illinois I~llutionControl Board
    119—125

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