ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
    July 26, 1983
    CITY OF MT0 OLIVE,
    Petitioner,
    V.
    )
    PCB 83—9
    ILLINOIS ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY,
    Respondent.
    OPINION AND ORDER OF THE BOARD (by J. Anderson):
    This matter comes before the Board on the petition for
    variance of the City of Mt. Olive (City), filed January 24, 1983
    as amended March 14 and May 2, 1983, pursuant to Orders of the
    Board. Variance ~eiief is requested from various effluent
    standards; however, the Board construes this petition to request
    relief from 35 Ill. Adm. Code 309.241(a) formerly Rule 962(a)
    of Chapter 3: Water Pollution. On May 31, 1983 the Illinois
    Environmental Protection Agency (Agency) filed its Recommendation
    that variance be denied, Hearing was waived and none has been
    held.
    Variance has been requested by the City to allow continued
    operation of a sanitary sewer extension currently serving only
    a six—unit, low-income housing apartment complex located on East
    Colfax Street. However, additional sewer line has been laid
    along the balance of the block, which is as yet undeveloped.
    The apartment complex was built by a private developer, but is
    owned by the Macoupin County Housing Authority (MCHA), which was
    added as a party respondent to this action. No construction or
    operating permits for the sewer extension at issue here were ever
    applied for or received. Sometime during the summer of 1982,
    the developer laid 200 feet of sewer line to serve the apartment
    complex, and the City laid its 150 feet of line to take advantage
    of the fact that the street was torn up. The Agency became
    aware of the existence of this non-permitted sewer extension
    during a routine inspection in August, 1982. Occupancy of the
    apartment complex apparently began in or about September.
    Based on actual water usage figures for the 15 apartment
    dwellers during September, October, and the first week of
    November, 1982, the discharge from the complex amounts to
    540 gallons per day, with a BOD loading 0.92 lbs./day and SS
    53-75
    2
    load~ingof 1.08 ihs,/day, ~s to the sewer line installed by
    the City, rio immediate additional flows are expected, since
    the City is “willing to refuse connections until their sewer
    system and treatment facilities are upgraded”.
    The sewer line in question is tributary to the City’s
    “South Sewage Treatment Plant”, which receives flows from
    about 40 of the City’s population of about 2,357. The South
    Plant, and the majority of sewers tributary to it, were placed
    on restricted status by the Agency “in the early 1970’s”; the
    “North Plant” had been placed on restricted status by the old
    Sanitary Water Board in 1967. The reason for placing each
    plant on restricted status was that the physical condition of
    each plant had deteriorated to the point where it was no longer
    capable of providing the treatment for which it was designed,
    and because raw sewage was being bypassed to the receiving
    stream continuously. Operation of the plants and pollution of
    their receiving streams (Sugar Creek and Silver Creek) was the
    subject of an enforcement action before the Board, IEPA v.Ci~y
    of Mt. Olive, P03 74—431, August 14, 1975, which was settled
    by stipulation.
    The City has received a Step 1, 2, 3 construction grant,
    and is currently in Step 2 of the grant program. The City
    intends to expand and upgrade the sewer system and the North
    Plant, and to abandon the South Plant. Start-up of the improved
    North Plant was scheduled to be October,-.. 1984 as of the date of
    the City’s last grant amendment in August, 1982.
    In the meantime, the South Plant is receiving flows which
    hydraulically and organically overload the plant. The South
    Plant can accommodate a design average hydraulic load of
    150,000 gpd; between March, 1982 and February, 1983 daily flows
    averaged between 153,432 and 382,000 gpd. The design average
    organic load is 1500
    P~E,
    The Agency calculates (in the absence
    of proper influent loading data) that the plant operated at an
    average organic loading of 1590 P,E, on a BOD basis between
    October, 1981 and March, 1982; actual figures presented for
    January and February., 1983 leads the Agency to calculate, for
    each respective month, BOD loadings of 3490 P.R. and 2590 P.E.,
    and SS loadings of 637 P.R. and 1640 P,E. During the period
    between March, 1982 and February, 1983 the plant’s Outfall 001
    was able to meet an interim effluent standard of 60 mg/l BOD
    on a monthly average in all hut two months; however the interim
    standard of 50 mg/i SS on a monthly average was violated in
    each of six months. (Interim bypassing is allowed from Outfall
    002.)
    Sewer system overflows are located at points 300 feet,
    3000 feet and 3500 feet downstream of the MCHA apartment
    complex. At the first overflow point, the City relieves the
    sewer system during surcharging by pumping wastewater directly
    from a manhole into a nearby farm field. At the other two
    53-76
    3
    overflow points, surcharging results in blowing the manhole
    lids off sewers. The Agency reports that no reports of basement
    back-ups have been made in areas downstream of the apartment
    complex.
    In support of its petition for variance, the City asserts
    that the flow added to the South Plant by the East Coifax
    extension represents “only” one—third of 1 of the plant’s
    total flow. The City asserts that it would be arbitrary or
    unreasonable to require disconnection of the apartments from the
    sewer system and provision of an alternative sewage disposal
    system, on the grounds that the unspecified expenses to the
    “owner and/or residents” cannot be justified, given the small
    addition to the South plant flow and anticipated North plant
    completion in 1984.
    The Agency argues that any financial hardship is
    self—imposed, since the long—term existence of restricted
    status as well as the need to obtain sewer construction and
    operation permits should have been known to the parties. In
    recommending denial of variance, it argues that this is a
    situation where the line should be drawn against even a minimal
    increase in flows to the plant, citing Willowbrook Development
    Corp. v. IPCB and IEPA, 92 Ill. App. 3d 1074, 416 N.E. 2d 385,
    392 (2nd Dist. 1981).
    In reviewing this petition, the Board finds that the
    City’s non-specific financial hardship argument boils down to
    the mere assertion that since the operation of an unpermitted
    small flow volume sewer connection is already a
    fait
    accompli,
    that the Board should not require it to be undone. The Board
    has previously rejected just such an argument, Drake et al. v.
    IEPA et al., PCB 81—54, December 17, 1981. The Board must
    again do so here. Variance is denied, on the basis of the
    City’s failure to prove arbitrary or unreasonable hardship.
    This Opinion constitutes the Board’s findings of fact and
    conclusions of law in this matter.
    ORDER
    The City of Mt. Olive’s petition for variance from 35 Ill.
    Mm. Code 309.241(a) is hereby denied.
    IT IS SO ORDERED.
    I, Christan L. Moffett, Clerk of the Illinois Pollution
    Control Board, hereby certify that the above Opinion and Order
    was adopted on the
    ‘~
    day of
    ____________________,
    1983 by
    a vote of
    .5-0 .
    I
    4
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    /,A
    /
    ~~A/
    Christan L. Moftett, ~4erk
    Illinois Pollution Control Board
    53-77

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