ILLINOIS

POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD

August 26,

1982

ILLINOIS ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

)

AGENCY,

)

Complainant,

)

)

PCB 81—98

WASTELAND,

INC., an Illinois

)

Corporation, VERNON LAMOREAUX,

)

DENNIS LAMOREAUX, ROGER PEMBLE,

)

and WASTE RESOURCES CORPORATION,

)

an Illinois Corporation,

)

Respondents.

CONCURRING OPINION (by I.

G. Goodman):

Although I

concur

generally with the findings and decision

of the Opinion and Order entered herein today,

I believe that

the type of situation before the Board in this case might well

have engendered much heavier penalties, particularly with respect

to a landowner.

Due to the tremendous increase in the types and amounts of

man-made materials (particularly those best described as chemicals)

in recent times, we

find

that we can no longer deposit our wastes

in any convenient hole in the ground expecting Mother Nature to

render it innocuous in a relatively short period of time.

Although

technology has created a tremendous variety of extremely useful

materials, it has

at

the same time created a like amount of fear-

fully dangerous waste products.

We are just now beginning to

appreciate the problems inherent in disposal of these waste

products and have not yet managed to bring the full

force of our

technological expertise to bear on the problem.

We are thus

forced to continue the use of obsolete and,

in some cases,

ineffective methods of disposal which were never intended to

address the problems involved with some of today~swastes.

Certainly the hole

in the ground of yesteryear has become

more sophisticated in order to contain these wastes in a more

reliable manner, but in the process such disposal has become

extremely complicated and expensive.

We have thus been forced

to separate wastes into a number of categories, each with its

own restrictions and safeguards.

These categories range from

non—putrescthle, non-combustible solids such as bricks,

concrete,

glass, ceramics,

etc. to highly sophisticated liquid waste with

known characteristics of an extremely hazardous nature and per-

haps unknown characteristics beyond our present understanding.

48-31

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2

We have on the one hand, therefore, what might be considered a

pile of rocks and on the other hand what might better have not

seen the light of day,

Since it is obviously stupid to put a

pile of stones and rocks in a very expensive, highly sophisticated

landfill designed for hazardous materials, we have one type of

landfill for the rocks and another type for the hazardous material.

Therein lies the problem.

Since a pile of rocks is not likely to cause any significant

environmental hazard,

such landfills are designed with ease of

access and low costs as the primary criteria.

As the material

to be landfilled becomes more and more hazardous,

the design

criteria of the landfill, including its location, becomes more

and more sophisticated with regard to long—term containment and

security with access and cost being of less and less importance.

This is an eminently practical way of addressing the problem

until we develop the technology to destroy hazardous wastes.

The problem, of course/

is to make sure that only rocks are

placed in landfills designed to hold only rocks.

A very elaborate regulatory system has been devised, both

at the federal and state levels,

to insure the adequacy of a

particular landfill for the material which it is intended to

receive.

This system includes cradle to grave tracking of

hazardous materials and a permitting system for landfill sites

which specifies not only how a landfill

is to be designed, but

what may be accepted by any particular landfill.

The system,

although complicated, does allow for the efficiency of not having

to design every landfill to hold hazardous wastes.

Inherent in

this scheme, however,

is

the need to be absolutely sure that only

materials for which a landfill is designed to accept are placed

in the landfill,

it is to fulfill this need that the Illinois

Environmental Protection Agency inspects landfills as frequently

as possible and which, on occasion, precipitates such an action

as is before the Board today.

It is extremely important that

landfill operators restrict their operations to those permitted

in their operating permit.

There is great financial incentive

for operators to accept non—permitted materials or to look the

other way when such materials are presented for disposal.

The

only way the State has to counter this temptation to landfill

operators and landowners is to make the penalties incurred by

such transgressions so onerous as to be not only unprofitable,

but indeed unthinkable,~

Thus,

landfill operators and owners

must be put on notice that the State intends to enforce its

landfill regulations vigorously.

Hopefully technology will soon catch up with the problem and

we

will, be able to dispose of the hazardous wastes without need

to depend upon underground burial,

Until such time, we must exer—

cise constant vigilance regarding the sites where such materials

are buried.

The potential for long—term,

wide—spread damage to

48-32

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3

the environment from these materials is enormous.

We cannot

afford to wait for this environmental damage to evidence itself,

for by then,

it will be too late.

Irvin G~kJG

man

I, Christan

L.

Moffett, Clerk of the Illinois Pollution

Control Board, hereby ceçtify that the above Concurring Opinion

was submitted on the

~

day of

______________,

1982.

Christan

L.

M

f

t,

Clerk

Illinois Pollu

on Control Board