ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
March 4, 1999
IN THE MATTER OF:
REGULATED RECHARGE AREA
DESIGNATION, DURAND, WINNEBAGO
COUNTY
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R99-19
(Rulemaking - Water)
ORDER OF THE BOARD (by G.T. Girard):
On February 1, 1999, the Board received a filing from the petitioner which we will
construe as a motion to reconsider the Board’s January 7, 1999 order. In the January 7, 1999
order, the Board dismissed the request from a citizen that the Board “establish” a regulated
recharge area in the areas south of Durand, Winnebago County, Illinois. In the February 1,
1999 filing, the citizen states that he “believe[s] the Board may be in error” for dismissing the
request because it was “submitted by an individual . . ., and not by the IEPA [Illinois
Environmental Protection Agency].”
In ruling upon a motion for reconsideration, the Board is to consider factors including,
but not limited to, error in the previous decision and facts in the record which are overlooked.
35 Ill. Adm. Code 101.246(d). In
Citizens Against Regional Landfill v. County Board of
Whiteside County (March 11, 1993), PCB 92-156, the Board stated that “[t]he intended
purpose of a motion to reconsider is to bring to the court’s attention newly-discovered
evidence which was not available at the time of the hearing, changes in the law, or errors in
the court’s previous application of the existing law.” Korogluyan v. Chicago Title & Trust
Co., 213 Ill. App. 3d 622, 572 N.E.2d 1154 (1st Dist. 1991).
The petitioner asserts that the Board’s decision may be in error because of a statement
found in a September 1993 publication prepared for the Illinois Department of Energy and
Natural Resources and the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency entitled
Groundwater
Protection by Local Government
. At page 35 of that booklet there is a statement which reads:
“The IEPA [Illinois Environmental Protection Agency] or any private party may petition to the
PCB [Board] to establish a regulated recharge area for aquifers needing regional protection.”
The Board agrees with petitioner that the language in the pamphlet asserts that “any
private party” may petition the Board to establish a regulated recharge area. However, the
Board notes that the pamphlet’s statement does not reference any specific provision of Illinois
law, case law, or Board decision as authority for that proposition. The Board looks only to the
statute, case law, and prior opinions by the Board to determine who may propose the
establishment of a regulated recharge area. The legislature, in Sections 17.2, 17.3, and 17.4
of the Environmental Protection Act (Act) (415 ILCS 5/17.2, 17.3, and 17.4 (1996)),
establishes the procedures for designation of a regulated recharge area. Reading those sections
together, the Board finds that the Illinois legislature crafted a procedure to be followed for
designating regulated recharge areas in the State. That procedure included a provision that
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proposed rules to establish a regulated recharge area come to the Board from the Illinois
Environmental Protection Agency. Section 17.3 of the Act. Therefore, the Board’s January
7, 1999 order was not in error, and the motion to reconsider is denied.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
Board Member M. McFawn dissented.
Board Member E.Z. Kezelis abstained.
I, Dorothy M. Gunn, Clerk of the Illinois Pollution Control Board, hereby certify that
the above order was adopted on the 4th
day of March 1999 by a vote of 5-1.
Dorothy M. Gunn, Clerk
Illinois Pollution Control Board