ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
October 18, 1989
CHRISTIAN COUNTY LANDFILL, INC.,)
Petitioner,
V.
)
PCB 89—92
CHRISTIAN COUNTY BOARD,
Respondent.
DISSENTING OPINION (by J.D. Dumelle):
I dissent from the Board’s Opinion and Order dated October 18,
1989, in this proceeding. Although I agree in general with
the
Board’s analysis as to whether each of the contested conditions are
reasonable and necessary to accomplish the purposes of Section 39.2
of the Illinois Environmental Protection Act (Act), I do not agree
with the Board’s ultimate handling of the proceeding. I believe
that this proceeding should be remanded to Christian County so that
it may reevaluate the application for site location approval in
light of the Board’s reversal of the conditions.
Section 39.2(e) of the Act states in pertinent part:
***In granting approval for a site the county
board or governing body of the municipality
may impose such conditions as may be
reasonable and necessary to accomplish the
purposes of this Section and as are not
inconsistent with regulations promulgated by
the Board.
***
(Emphasis added).
In granting approval of Christian County Landfill’s application,
the Christian County Board imposed conditions which it stated it
believes are reasonable and necessary to accomplish the purposes
of Section 39.2 of the Act. The language “in granting approval”
in Section 39.2(e) indicates to me that when a county board or
governing body of a municipality grants SB172 approval with
conditions, those conditions become part and parcel of its
approval. Although the County’s Resolution in this case addresses
the criteria and the conditions separately, I believe that the
imposition of these conditions should be considered an essential
ingredient of the approval, not a separable aspect of the approval
as the majority apparently believes.
In fact, I believe that the Christian County Board might not
have granted its approval but for its belief that the conditions
were reasonable and necessary and would be enforceable. It is
entirely possible that the County’s belief, although unstated, was
that so long as these conditions are complied with, the criteria
will be satisfied. And conversely, the County may have believed
that if the conditions are not complied with, the criteria will not
be satisfied. To allow for this interpretation, I would have
remanded the proceeding to the County for a reevaluation of the
record in light of the Board’s holdings on the contested
conditions.
Moreover, in simply striking the conditions and not
remanding, the majority denies to Christian County the opportunity
to perfect the conditions which it intended to accompany the
approval. The Christian County Board apparently had concerns which
it intended to remedy by way of conditional approval. Clearly,
Section 39.2(e) of the Act permits this manner of remedying the
decisionmaker’s concerns. While it may be true that Christian
County has not drafted its conditions as artfully as it could have,
it is possible that the County’s concerns, if drafted more clearly,
would be reasonable and necessary. I do not believe it fair or
just that Christian County’s concerns should be ignored so
completely simply because the conditions were incorrectly worded.
I believe that Christian County should have the opportunity to
perfect the intent of its conditions consistent with the Board’s
Order.
Finally, I am concerned that today’s majority’s holding will
have a chilling effect on the imposition of conditions in future
SB172 cases. The majority’s decision sends a message to all county
boards and governing bodies of municipalities that they get one
attempt at imposing conditions and that if that attempt fails for
any reason they are without recourse——approval is granted
unconditionally. I fear that rather than approve site location
suitability approval with conditions reasonable and necessary to
accomplish the purposes of Section 39.2, local decisionmakers will
opt for the safer course and disapprove the application outright.
If this happens, the goal of Section 39.2, i.e., to site new
regional pollution control facilities, is frustrated.
I believe that the appropriate course of action in this case
is to remand this proceeding to the County for further action
consistent with the Board’s review of each of the conditions. For
these reasons, I dissent.
~
•/)7
I, Dorothy
M. Gunn, Clerk of the Illinois Pollution Control
Board, hereb~
certify
that the above Dissenting opinion was filed
on the
//
~
day of
__________________,
1989.
/
Dorothy N’! Gunn, Clerk,
Illinois pollution Control Board
•acob D. Dumelle
Board Member