ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD

December

2,

1982

BROWNING FERRIS INDUSTRIES OF

)

ILLINOIS,

INC.,

Petitioner,

v.

)

PCB 82—101

LAKE

COUNTY

BOARD

OF

SUPERVISORS,

)

Respondent,

and

ILLINOIS ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY,

Intervenor

—

Petitioner.

DISSENTING OPINION

(by J.D.

Dumelle):

My reason

for dissenting

lies in the failure by the majority

to allow Condition “E”.

Before discussing that point

I do wish to

agree with the majority in here allowing Lake County to place

conditions to accompany the site location approval.

These approval

matters are not always unilateral acceptances or rejections.

The

acceptance here by the Board majority of reasonable conditions will

do a great deal in making the site location approval process much

more workable and acceptable to the public and to the local govern-

ments involved.

I agree that Condition “X” ought not to be allowed.

This

clause would require enforcement by IEPA.

Since the enforcement

would probably be brought before the Board by the IEPA,

an unfor-

tunate situation would develop were Condition

“X” to be allowed.

The Board would be judging violations of conditions

it ha~already

seen

(in an appeal such as this) and had presumably ratified by

its earlier failure to strike.

How then could the Board be

unbiased in judging anew the reasonableness or need for that

condition?

Because of these quasi—judicial complications,

I

agree that Condition “X” should not be approved.

The majority makes a distinction in its Opinion between

“inspection”

(or information—gathering) conditions and “regulatory”

(or action)

type conditions.

It upheld Conditions G and H to

“discuss and recommend” and amended the words “may require” to

“recommend” in the latter.

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—2—

Before

“recommendations” can be made,

the County must have

information.

The majority,

in striking Condition

“B” denies to

the County the inspection of special waste manifests and also

the right to test wastes for verification.

Yet

in Board

discussion no one objected to County inspection of the special

waste manifests.

Condition “B”,

as a minimum,

could have been

amended to at least allow inspection of the manifests.

Let us review a key criterion in the Act.

It reads as

follows:

the facility

is so designed,

located

and proposed to be operated that the

public health, safety and welfare

will be protected

Section

39.2(a)(2)1

(emphasis added).

The operation of a special wastes landfill can imperil public

health.

Certain organic solvents such as acetone, toluene and

xylene are known to make clay layers more permeable and thus

easier for leachate passage to water supply aquifers.

Inspec-

tion of manifest documents to verify the important liquid:

solid

ratio is a method of insuring the public health and safety.

This

power was denied by the rejection of Condition

“B”.

Beyond inspection of manifests comes the verification of

substances disposed.

How is mislabelling to be detected?

It can

only be found by chemical testing.

The remainder of Condition

“B”

would have allowed Lake County to take samples for its own testing.

What is the harm in doing this?

The procedure would keep the site

operator and the hauler on their toes.

The IEPA,

strapped for

funds, cannot do more than a token effort in this regard.

I would have allowed Condition

“B” in full so long as

disposal operations were not seriously slowed by sample taking.

Lake County should be allowed to protect its citizens and its

disposal o~rop~t~

~

acob D.

Dumelle, Chairman

I, Christan

L.

Moffe t,

Clerk of the Illinois Pollution

Control Board, hereby c~tifythat the

bove D.~issentingOpinion

was submitted on the ~

day of

,

1982.

Christan L. Moff~’~/(1Clerk

Illinois Pollution c~ontrolBoard

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