ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
    August 20,
    1981
    RAYMOND
    L3IANUCCI, ET AL.,
    )
    )
    Petitioners,
    v.
    )
    PCB 81—64
    )
    ILLINOIS ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
    AGENCY,
    )
    Respondent.
    OPINION AND ORDER OF THE BOARD
    (by
    I.
    Goodman):
    On May 11, 1981 Petitioners filed an amended petition for
    variance from Rules 951 and 962(a) of Chapter
    3:
    Water Pollution
    Rules and Regulations in order to connect a restaurant and bar to
    the sanitary sewer system of the Village of Lisle,
    DuPage County.
    The village owns the intermediate sewer system and the county
    Department of Public Works
    (County)
    owns the treatment plant.
    Hearing was waived.
    The Board has received no public comment
    On May 1,
    1981 the Board ordered that the filing of this amended
    petition evidence the joinder of the County as a necessary party.
    The restaurant can seat 125 people and employs six people.
    The discharge flow of the restaurant is 2,400 gallons per day.
    The property’s septic system is not functioning properly and
    discharges effluent to the land surface.
    Petitioners allege that
    compliance can be achieved only by connection to the Village’s
    sewer system because of “substantial effluent overflow,
    lack of
    area to expand the septic field
    ...
    high impractical costs of
    attempted field expansion and soil conditions not favorable to
    good percolation.”
    The cost of connection would be less than
    $6,385
    (Pet.,
    p.2).
    No data assessing the impact upon human,
    plant and animal life is given.
    On April
    17,
    1981 Petitioners met with the
    County
    to discuss
    methods of compliance alternative to connection to the Village
    system.
    County authorities felt that expansion of the septic
    field would not comply with standards of the Health Department.
    The arbitrary and unreasonable hardship alleged by Petitioners
    is that a business has been operating on the site since 19107
    that
    a design to expand the septic field on an adjacent 47,000-square-
    foot lot owned by Petitioners “probably would not function”; that
    the cost of “attempted compliance” would exceed $15,000; that an
    alternative compliance plan (the same steps which Petitioners
    allege will be taken to minimize impact during the period of
    43—181
    2
    variance) costs $12,000 yearly, which “said restaurant cannot
    economically support”; that the present condition of the septic
    field constitutes a serious health problem according to the DuPage
    County Health Department; that hardship is imposed upon the tenant;
    and that if Petitioners lose income from the present rental of the
    property they would lose their major livelihood income
    (Pet.,
    pp.4—5).
    The Agency’s recommendation is to deny variance.
    The Agency
    points out that the County treatment plant involved in the proposed
    connection is connected to a second plant owned by the County,
    located in the Village of Woodridge, by an interceptor sewer.
    The two plants are combined as one treatment facility (“Lisle-
    Woodridge”)
    for purposes of permits, which both discharge to the
    east branch of the DuPage River.
    Over two years ago the Agency
    notified the County that a restricted status determination had
    been made for these plants.
    The Agency had in 1975 issued a permit to the Village to
    construct a sewer extension to serve Petitioner’s property and
    to allow a loading from it of up to 12,800 gallons per day.
    The
    extension was completed but Petitioners never connected to it.
    The Agency states that the petition lacks discussion of expandi--’)
    the septic system by extending the laterals in order to use more
    of the 47,000—square-foot adjacent lot.
    Since 1974 the Agency has been aware of the potential for a
    serious environmental hazard by the malfunctioning of Petitioners’
    septic system.
    Recently it has noted that the area of seepage
    is
    continually saturated and that it constitutes a serious health
    problem and a nuisance.
    Operation of the Lisle plant is expected
    to cease upon completion in 1983 of the County’s expansion of the
    Woodridge plant’s capacity
    (to be called the Woodridge-Green
    Valley plant).
    The Agency concludes that the Lisle plant would inadequately
    treat the wastewater generated by the proposed connection,
    that
    the imposition of restricted status alone does not demonstrate
    arbitrary or unreasonable hardship upon Petitioners,
    and that
    Petitioners offer no explanation both as to why the problem has
    not been corrected since 1974 and as to why Petitioners declined
    to connect to the completed extension which had been constructed
    to serve the restaurant and bar.
    On April
    21,
    1981 the Board received a letter from the Du Page
    County Health Department stating that the septic system serving
    the subject restaurant have progressively deteriorated to a point
    that it has become a serious health problem and nuisance.
    It
    is
    the Department’s opinion that a reconstructed septic system would
    probably fail to function and that connection of the restaurant
    to the sanitary sewer would be
    a smaller liability to ti.e State
    than having the saturated condition in the seepage field area.
    43—182
    3
    On July 15,
    1981 the Board received what is termed amendment
    to
    the amended petition from the petitioners alleging that the only
    means available to handle the problem is a periodic pumping of the
    septic tank at a cost of approximately $150 each time the tank is
    pumped.
    Bianucci claimes that pumping might occur as frequently
    as once each week during wet weather and that the expense would
    result in the closing of the restaurant or that the operator and
    his six employees would be unemployed and petitioner would lose
    his only source of income.
    There is some question in this case whether the hardships
    alleged by Bianucci are self-imposed since he failed in 1975 to
    take advantage of the opportunity to connect to the sewer ecten—
    sion that was constructed at least partially for his benefit.
    However, the Board in the past has granted variance in the face
    of insufficient evidence of personal hardship to petitioner where
    as here the health and welfare of the people of the State of
    Illinois is threatened due to the adverse conditions caused by a
    malfunctioning septic system.
    The Board finds that the combinatioo
    of the hardship alleged by Bianucci and the prospect of an enhan:~ed
    environment with the abandonment of the existing septic field is
    sufficient to convince the Board to grant the variance.
    ~s Opinion constitutes the finding of facts and conclusions
    of la~of the Board in this matter.
    ORDER
    It is the Order of the Pollution Control Board that Raymond
    Bianucci and Pauline Bianucci he granted variance from Rules 951
    and 962(a) of Chapter
    3:
    Water Pollution Control Rules and
    Regulations in order to connect their restaurant facility to the
    Lisle sewage treatment plant,
    owned and operated by the Du Page
    County Department of Public Works
    in Woodridge,
    Illinois.
    I,
    Christan L.
    Moffett, Clerk of the Illinois Pollution
    Control Board,
    hereby certify that the above Opinion and Order was
    adopted on the ~?61 day of
    ~4i~cL,
    1981 by a vote of
    ‘j~~_
    Illinois Pollut~
    Control Board
    43—183

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