ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
September 22,
1988
CITIZENS UTILITIES COMPANY
OF ILLINOIS,
Petitioner,
v.
)
PCB 88—151
ILLINOIS ENVIRONMENTAL
)
PROTECTION AGENCY,
Respondent.
ORDER OF THE BOARD
(by J. Anderson):
This matter comes before the Board
on a petition for
variance
filed September 16,
1988 by Citizens Utilities Company
of Illinois (Citizens).
The variance
is requested
for Citizens’
water supply service area referred
to as Chicago Suburban.
Citizens requests five year variance from 35 Ill.
Adm. Code
602.105(a)
Standards of Issuance and 602.106 Restricted Status
but only as related to radium—226 and radium—228.
Citizens’
is
seeking
relief from the Board’s regulations so as
to be able to
extend its water mains and be removed from the Agency’s
restricted status list.
Citizens’ proposed schedule for compliance with the combined
radium standard is as follows:
Total Elapsed Time From
Date of Board Order
Event
Grantiñg Pétition.Request
1.
Satisfying declaratory judgment
36th month
condition precedent to Glenview
agreement; design and completion
of construction of facilities
for Glenview Lake Michigan
water supply facilities.
OR
2.
Obtain Illinois Commerce
60th month
Commission approval
for ion
exchange treatment design and
completion of construction
of ion exchange treatment
facilities.
92—493
—2—
In reviewing the variance petition,
it appears that Citizens
is either:
a)
Proposing
to secure Lake Michigan Water
in three years,
but without any schedule related
to construction of the system.
Citizens states:
The
timing
and
success
of
Glenview’s
action
for
declaratory
judgment
are
not
within
Citizens’
control
and
cannot
be
assured.
It
is
Citizens’
best
estimate
that,
assuming
one
more
year
of
litigation
between
Glenview
and
Northfield
Woods,
approximately
three
years
will
be
required
to
substitute
Lake Michigan water
as Citizens’
source
of supply.
(Pet.
p.
6,7,
Para.
15);
or
b)
Proposing,
as
a subsequent alternative,
to install
ion
exchange treatment equipment in five years,
after
first receiving
Illinois Commerce Commission
(ICC)
approval, but without any
schedule related
to ICC approval
or
to construction of the
system.
Citizens states:
If
Citizens were
required
to
install the treatment
equipment
now,
the
equipment
would
be
rendered
useless
a
short
time
later
if
CUCI obtains
a Lake
Michigan source of supply from Glenview as proposed
in the compliance plan.
(Pet.
p.
7,8, Para.
17)
The variance petition
is deficient.
In a variance petition
35
111. Adm. Code 104.121(f)
requires:
a detailed description of the existing and proposed
equipment
or
proposed
method
of
control
to
be
undertaken
to achieve full compliance with
the Act
and
regulations,
including
a
time schedule for the
implementation of all phases
of
the control proc~ram
completion
and
the
estimated
costs
involved
for
each
phase
and
the
total
cost
to
achieve
compliance;
(emphasis added)
Citizens must propose a compliance plan with
such
a time
schedule, and with such increments of progress.
The Board also emphasizes that Citizens must,
after
discussing alternate methods of compliance, select “the control
program proposed
to achieve compliance” pursuant to Section
104.121(i).
The first
three years
of Citizens’ proposal commits
to
initiating nothing~Citizens simply proposes
to “wait and see”
92—494
—3—
until
there
is
a final determination
in court litigation that
Citizens does not have
to pay the connection
fees.
If Citizens does not win on the connection fee issue
or,
presumably,
if
it wins too late in the three year period
to
design, construct and hook—on to the Glenview system, Citizens
proposes
to start over with a new compliance program of at least
two years
to install
ion exchange treatment after getting
Illinois Commerce Commission approval.
Here, again,
there
is no
time schedule,
no date for initiating design, and no schedule at
all
for any phase of the control program except
a final
compliance date.
The Board
takes special note of its opinions and orders
in
PCB 86—185 concerning Citizens most recent variance petition for
the same water supply and concerning the same combined radium
non—compliance, and hereby incorporates by reference from PCB 86—
185:
Opinion and Order,
March 24,
1988;
Supplemental Opinion and
Order, May 19, 1988,
and Order, August
4,
1988.
These prior Board actions thoroughly discuss
the connection
fee issue,
and why it
is unacceptably speculative
for
the
litigation to be an essential element of the timing of
a
compliance plan.
The only difference
in this petition is that
Citizens
is now requesting authorization to abandon at some point
the speculative compliance program (similar
to,
but even more
imprecise than,
that proposed
in PCB 86—185)
in favor of another
compliance program, also deficient, and also unacceptable.
If the Board does not receive an amended petition within 45
days of the date of this Order curing the above—noted defects,
this matter will be subject to dismissal.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
I, Dorothy M.
Gunn,
Clerk of the Illinois Pollution COntrol
Board, hereby certify that the above Order was adopted on
the
~4#day
of
_____________,
1988, by a vote
of
?—ô
2
Dorothy M.
unn, Clerk
Illinois Pollution Control Board
92—495