ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
January 18, 1991
LAND
AND
LAKES COMPANY, JMC
)
OPERATIONS,
INC. and NBD
TRUST
COMPANY
OF ILLINOIS,
)
AS TRUSTEE UNDER TRUST
NO.
2624EG,
Petitioners,
v.
)
PCB
91—7
)
(Landfill Siting)
VILLAGE OF ROMEOVILLE,
)
)
Respondent.
ORDER OF THE BOARD
(by B. Forcade):
This action is an appeal filed January
15, 1991 pursuant to
Section 40.1
(a) of the Environmental Protection Act
(“Act”)
(Ill.Rev.Stat.
ch. 111—1/2,
par. 1040.1
(a)).
Land and Lakes
Company, JMC Operations,
Inc. and NBD Trust Company of
Illinois,
as Trustee under
trust No. 2624EG appeal the decision of the
Village of Romeoville denying site location suitability
approval.
On January 16,
1991, Will County filed a “Petition for
Leave for Will County to Intervene in Support of the Refusal by
the Village Board of Romeoville, Will County,
Illinois, to Grant
Siting Approval”.
On January 18, 1991,
Land and Lakes filed an
“Objection to Petition for Leave to Intervene”.
Also on January
18, 1991,
Paul and Ann Jurca, John and Marlene Jurca, Kelby and
Mary
Briddick, Lawrence and Diane Kollins, James and Ann Dralle,
Robert and Jean Hastert,
Robert C. and Doris Hastert, Blanche
Hassert, and Fillup, Inc.,
filed a “Petition for Leave
to
Intervene
in Support of the Refusal by the Village Board of
Romeoville,
~Jil1County,
Illinois,
to Grant Siting Approval”.
The Board will not rule on this petition until the time for any
response by Romeoville has run.
Record Before the County Board
P.A.
82—682, also known as SB—172, as codified in Section
40.1(a)
of the Act, provides that the hearing before the Board
is
to “be based exclusively on the record before the county board or
governing body of the municipality”.
The statute does not
specify
who
is to file with the Board such record or who
is to
certify to the completeness or correctness of the record.
As the Village of Romeoville alone can verify and certify
what exactly
is the entire record before
it,
in the interest of
protecting the rights of all parties to this action, and
in order
118—115
to satisfy the intention of SB—l72, the Board believes that the
Village of Romeoville must be the party to prepare and file the
record on appeal.
The Board suggests that guidance in so doing
can be had by reference to Rules 321 through 324 of the Illinois
Supreme Court Rules.
The record shall contain legible versions
of all documents,
transcripts, and exhibits deemed to pertain to
this proceeding from the initial filing by the siting applicant
through and including final action by the local government
body.
The record shall contain the originals of all documents,
shall be arranged as much as is possible in chronological
sequence, and shall be sequentially numbered, placing the letter
“C” before the number of such page.
In addition to the actual
documents which comprise the record,
the Village of Romeoville
Clerk shall also prepare a document entitled “Certificate of
Record on Appeal” which shall be an index of the record that
lists the documents comprising the record and shows the page
number upon which they start and end.
Seven copies of the
certificate, seven copies of the transcript of the Village of
Romeoville hearing and three copies of any other documents
in the
record shall be filed with the Board, and a copy of the
certificate shall be served upon the petitioner(s).
The Clerk of
the Village of Romeoville
is given
21 days from the date of this
Order to “prepare, bind and certify the record on appeal”
(Ill.
Supreme Court, Rule 324).
If the record
is not legible,
is not
sequentially numbered, or fails to include an appropriate index
of the record,
the clerk of the Pollution Control Board may
refuse to accept the document for filing.
Waiver of Decision Deadline
Section 40.1(a) provides that
if there
is no final action by
the Board within 120 days, petitioner may deem the site location
approved.
The Board has construed identical “in accordance with the
terms of” language contained in Section 40(b) of the Act
concerning third—party
appeals of the grant of hazardous waste
landfill permits as giving the person who had requested the
permit a) the right to a decision within the applicable statutory
time frame
(now 120 days), and b)
the right to waive
(extend) the
decision period (Alliance for a Safe Environment, et al.
v. Akron
Land Corp.
et al., PCB 80—184, October
30,
1980).
The Board
therefore construes Section 40.1(b)
in like manner, with the
result that failure of this Board to act in 120 days would allow
the site location applicant to deem the site location approved.
Pursuant
to Section 105.104 of the Procedural Rules,
it
is each
party’s responsibility to pursue its action, and to insist that a
hearing on the petition
is timely scheduled in order to allow the
Board to review the record and to render its decision within 120
days of the filing of the petition.
118—116
—3—
Transcription Costs
The issue of who has the burden of providing transcription
in Board site location suitability appeals has been addressed in
Town of Ottawa,
et al.
v.
IPCB, et al., 129 Iii. App.
3rd,
472
N.E.2d 150 (Third District, 1984).
In that case,
the Court
ordered the Board to assume transcription costs
(472 N.E.2d at
155).
The Supreme Court denied leave to appeal on March
14,
1985.
In cognizance of this ruling,
the Board will provide for
stenographic transcription of the Board hearing in this matter.
This matter
is accepted for hearing.
Hearing must be
scheduled within 14 days of the date of
this Order and completed
within 60 days of the date of this Order.
The hearing officer
shall inform the Clerk of the Boarc
f the time and location of
the hearing at least
40 days in advance of hearing so that public
notice of hearing may be published.
After hearing,
the hearing
officer shall submit an exhibit list, written schedule for
submission of briefs
if any and all actual exhibits to the Board
within
5 days of the hearing.
Any briefing schedule shall
provide for final filings as expeditiously as possible and in no
event later than 70 days from the date of this Order.
If after appropriate consultation with the parties,
the
parties fail to provide an acceptable hearing date or
if after an
attempt the hearing officer
is unable to consult with the
parties, the hearing officer shall unilaterally set a hearing
date in conformance with the schedule above.
This schedule will
only provide the Board a very short time period to deliberate and
reach a decision before the due date.
The hearing officer and
the parties are encouraged to expedite this proceeding as much as
possible.
The hearing officer may extend this schedule only on a
waiver of the decision deadline by the site location suitability
applicant and only for the equivalent or fewer number of days
that the decision deadline
is waived.
Such waivers must be
provided
in writing to the Clerk of the Board.
Any waiver must
be an “open waiver” or a waiver of decision until a date
certain.
Because of requirements regarding the publication of notice
of hearing,
no scheduled hearing may be canceled unless the site
location suitability applicant provides an open waiver or a
waiver to a date at
least 120 days beyond the date of the motion
to cancel hearing.
This should allow ample time for the Board to
republish notice of hearing and receive transcripts from the
hearing before the due date.
Any order by the hearing officer
granting cancellation of hearing shall include a new hearing date
at least 40 days
in the future and at least
30 days prior to the
new due date and the Clerk
of the Board shall be promptly
118—117
—4—
informed of the new schedule.
Because this proceeding
is the type for which the Illinois
Environmental Protection Act sets a very short statutory deadline
for making a decision, absent a waiver,
the Board will grant
~extensionsor modifications only in unusual circumstances.
Any
such motion must set forth an alternative schedule for notice,
hearing, and final submissions, as well as the deadline for
decision, including response time to such a motion.
However, no
such motion shall negate the obligation of the hearing officer to
establish a Scheduling Order pursuant to the requirements of this
Order, and to adhere to that Order until modified.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
I, Dorothy M. Gunn,
Clerk of the Illinois Pollution Control
Board, hereby certify
~1i~t
the above Order was adopted on
the
/?~
day of
1991, by a vote
of
7—~
S
Control Board
118—118