ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL

BOARD

July g,

1981

CITIZENS FOR A BETTER ENVIRONMENT, ET AL

•,

)

)

Complainants,

)

v.

)

PCB

80—178

)

GENERAL

IRON INDUSTRIES, INC.,

)

)

Respondent.

MR.

ROBERT

GOLDSMITH

APPEARED

ON

BEHALf

OF COMPLAINMT.

tIR.

ROBERT

3.

LIFTON,

BILANDIC,

NEISTEIN,

RICHMM, IIAUSLINGER &

YOUNG,

APPEARED

ON

BEHALF

OF

THE

RESPONDENT.

OPINION

AND

ORDER

OF

THE

BOARD

(by

I.

Goodman):

On

October

1,

1980

Citizens

for

a

Better

Environment

(CBE)

filed this complaint against General Iron Industries, Inc.

(General

Iron),

alleging violations of Sections 9(a) and 9(0) of the tilinots

Environmental Protection Act

(Act) and Rules 102 and 502(a) of

Chapter 2 of the Board’s regulations concerning air pollution.

Hearing was held on May 22, 1981, at which the parties presented

a stipulation of facts and proposal for settlement for the Boards

consideration pursuant to Rule 331 of the Board’s Procedural Rules.

Testimony as to the

proposed

settlement was heard from

one citisen

witness.

The Board has received no written public comment in this

matter.

There are a number of legal and procedural deficiencies tn

the proposed settlement agreement as presented to the Board.

The

most obvious problem

is

the fact that the proposed stipulation

contains conditions referring to and

I.e signed by five citizens

who are

not parties to this proceeding.

However, on

review

of the

situation presented by this case, the floard has determined that

acceptance of the proposed settlement agreement would be the

most

reasonable resolution of the environmental problem presented

theroin and that no person would be prejudiced by such acceptance.

The Board shall, therefore, on its own

motion, correct certain

deficiencies and waive all of the defects contained in

the

proposati

settlement and accept the settlement as the resolution of this

matter.

The problem here occurred, as was cited in the stipulation o~

facts, when General Iron accumulated several large piles of oily

machine shop turnings at its Magnolia Street facility in antici-

pation of processing and selling them to Wisconsin Steel Company~

43—1

---

2

Wisconsin Steel Company subsequently shut down its foundry and

General Iron found itself unable to move the turnings out of the

facility.

Subsequently, due to spontaneous combustion or to other

unknown reasons,

the piles of oily turnings began burning and

continued to burn notwithstanding numerous attempts by the Chicago

Fire Department to extinguish the fires.

General Iron thereafter

purchased fire hoses with which

it has continuously applied water

to the piles of scrap

in order to prevent and retard combustion.

During the initial period of uncontrolled burning, certain indivi-

duals in the area complained to CBE concerning the smoke and odor.

The result was the instant complaint filed by CBE, apparently on

behalf of the complaining citizens.

In the proposed settlement agreement the parties agree

that

this action shall be dismissed without prejudice in consideration

of certain future rights and duties of the parties with respect

to the pollution problem.

General Iron agrees to refrain from

storing combustible oil—coated machine shop turnings

in the

futurt~

and to use its best efforts to sell and remove all such turnings

presently located at the Magnolia facility while continuing to

apply water to the existing piles for the purpose of retarding

combustion.

CBE and the residents agree not to pursue this

matter

so long as General Iron fulfills

its

duties under

the

proposed

stipulation and agree that no fine or other monetary payments

need be made by General Iron in connection with

this

action,

The

rights and duties as contained in

the

proposed

settlement agreenent

are recited in considerable detail: however,

the

foregoing

is

a

fair summary of its terms.

The Board finds that,

notwithstanding the

legal and technic~i

deficiencies in the proposed settlement

agreement,

the

settlement

agreement constitutes

a fair and reasonable resolution

of

the

problem, particularly

considering the inadvertent nature of

the

source of the pollution and

the

likelihood that

it

will not recurs

The Board will therefore accept

the

proposed settlement agreement

and dismiss the action herein without prejudice, but will

order

the parties to execute their duties under the agreement~ To

this

end the Board joins all nonparties who executed

the

stipulation

and the settlement agreement.

This Opinion constitutes

the findings of fact and conclusions

of law of the Board in

this

matter,

OflDE~

1.

The following named persons are hereby

joined

as

complaining parties to this action pursuant to Procedural ~ule

303(c):

Joseph

L.

Strumidlowskie,

1506 N. El~tonAvenue, Chicago,

Illinois; Anne Brennan,

1269 W. LeMoyne Street, Chicago,

Illinois;

John T. Woltjen,

1507

N. Elston Avenue, Chicago, Illinois~

Bonnie Foley,

1507 N. Elston Avenue, Chicago,

Illinois: and Sam

Delgado,

1524 N. Throop, Chicago,

Illinois.

43—8

---

3

2.

General Iron Industries,

Inc.,

Citizens for a Better

Environment,

and the five persons named in Paragraph

1 above shall

execute their duties pursuant to the settlement agreement filed

before the Board on April

17,

1981, which settlement agreement is

hereby incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein.

3.

The complaint is hereby dismissed without prejudice.

IT

IS SO ORDERED.

Mr. Anderson abstained.

I, Christan L.

Moffett, Clerk of the Illinois Pollution

Control board,

hereby certify that the above Opinion and Order

was adopt~don the

d(

~

day of

~

,

1981 by a

vote of

~frO

.

•)

~)

(

j/~~

~

!~)~1/

~ChristanL.

Moffett’,~’94~erk

Illinois Pollution ~ot~trolBoard

43—9