ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
December
14, 1978
OSCAR MAYER
& CO.,
Petitioner,
v.
)
PCB
78—14
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY,
Respondent.
MR. PERCY
L.
ANGELO, MAYER, BROWN
&
PLATT,
APPEARED
ON
BEHALF
OF
PETITIONER.
MR. RUSSELL
R. EGGERT, ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL, APPEARED ON
BEHALF OF RESPONDENT.
OPINION AND ORDER OF THE BOARD
(by Mr. Goodman):
On January
20,
1978,
Oscar Mayer
& Co.
(Oscar Mayer)
filed this
Petition for Review of Permit Denial before the Board alleging that
the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency
(Agency) erred in its
denial of Oscar Mayer’s permit application for a continuous
large
sausage process
(CLSP)
at the company’s Chicago plant.
A hearing was
held
in
this matter on October
3,
1978.
No citizens attended the
hearing, and the Board has received no public comment in this matter.
Early in this proceeding
a question arose concerning the scope
of discovery in an action under Section
40 of the Act to contest
Agency denial of the permit.
The Agency took an interlocutory
appeal from an order of the hearing officer compelling answers
to
Interrogatories which the Agency claimed were beyond the scope of dis-
covery
in this type of proceeding.
The Board accepted the inter-
locutory appeal and,
in a comprehensive interim order, carefully
delineated the scope of discovery in this case.
In its interim
order of June
14,
1978,
the Board stated:
The ultimate question to be decided by the Board
in this
matter
is whether or not emissions from the process
for
which the permit was denied exceed limitations of Rule
203(b) of Chapter
2 of the Board’s Regulations.
Essential
to the resolution of
the
question
is a determination of
the Board of the actual weight of the material introduced
into the process per hour,
as
defined by Rule 201 of Chapter
32—243
—2—
2 of the Board’s Regulations.
To do so the Board needs to
know only the weight of each material involved;
the Board
can then determine which of these materials
the Board intended,
by Board Regulation,
to be included in the proper calculation
of the actual weight introduced into the process per hour.
How or why the Agency arrived at
a different conclusion
on
the same facts is simply not relevant to the Board determina-
tion.
At the hearing,
the parties presented a Stipulation of Fact
for the Board’s consideration in its deliberations.
In addition
both parties presented briefs based upon the facts
contained in
the
Stipulation.
The subject of this permit review proceeding
is the continuous
large sausage process
(CLSP) operated by Oscar Mayer at its meat
processing plant in Chicago, Illinois.
In this process large loaves
of sausage products are progressively smoked,
cooked and chilled.
In order
to produce the smoke needed in the CLSP, hardwood chips
are fed into smoke generators, the product of which is fed directly
into the smoke zone of the CLSP for the smoking portion of produc-
tion process.
The productivity
of the CLSP
is related to the
amount of woodchips and the amount of meat used;
the greater the
amount of meat processed, the more smoke required and the greater
the amount of woodchips consumed.
The CLSP processes approximately
12,000 lbs./hr.
of meat under normal conditions.
An Agency permit to operate the CLSP had been obtained by Oscar
Mayer in 1973.
Application
for that permit relied on a process
weight rate of 12,000 lbs./hr.,
including both meat and the hardwood
chips used to produce the smoke.
Oscar Mayer filed a renewal appli-
cation in October,
1977,
which was essentially identical
to the
application previously granted.
This renewal application was denied
by the Agency, which alleged that the CLSP’s particulate emission
rate of 1.8 lbs./hr.,
as calculated by the Agency using standard
emission factors, exceeded the allowable emission rate of 203(b)
of
the Board’s Air Regulations.
(Stip.
p.3)
In its determination,
the
Agency excluded the weight
of the meat introduced into the process
from the calculation of process weight rate.
As a result, the Agency
has determined allowable emissions from the process
to be 0.58
lbs./
hr., while inclusion of the meat in the calculation would result in
an allowable emission rate of 13.6 lbs./hr.
It is therefore obvious
that inclusion of the weight of the meat
is essential if the allow-
able emission rate
is
to meet the Agency’s assumed emission rate of
1.8 lbs./hr.
The Board
finds that the question of inclusion of the
weight of the meat in the calculation of process weight rate
is
determinative in this case.
32—244
—3—
In
a
recent
decision,
United
States
Steel
Corp.
v.
EPA,
PCB
77—317
(June
22,
1978)
,
the
Board
considered
the
question
of
process
weight
rate.
Both
in
that
opinion
and
in
the
original
opinion
in
R7l—23, which adopted the process weight rules,
the Board has stressed
that the purpose of process weight rates
is to relate the allowable
emissions
directly
to
the
productivity
of
the
particular
process.
The
Board
finds
that
the
productivity
of
the
process
in
this
case
is
the
amount
of
the
meat
produced,
and
that
the
allowable
emissions
are
therefore directly related
to
this perameter.
That
the
emissions
from
the
CLSP
will
increase
or
decrease
as
the
weight
of
the
meat
processed
increases
and
decreases
appears
obvious.
It
is
somewhat
less
obvious
that the total emissions
from
the process will increase or
decrease
with a change in the amount of wood chips consumed since the burning
of
the
chips
constitute
only
a
part
of
the
total
process.
Since the weight of the meat is
to be considered for the purpose
of
determining the process weight rate and the allowable emissions
under Rule 203(b)
of Chanter
2
and
since
the
stipulated
facts
herein
indicate that such inclusion will result in compliance with the rule,
the Board finds that Oscar Mayer has met its burden of proving it
will not cause a violation of the Act or Regulations and is
entitled
to an operating permit for its CLSP operation at the company’s Chicago
plant.
This Opinion constitutes the findings of fact and conclusions
of law of the Board in this matter.
ORDER
It is the Order of the Pollution Control Board that the Oscar
Mayer
& Co. permit application for its continuous
large sausage
process
at the company’s Chicago, Illinois plant be remanded to the
Illinois Environmental Protection Agency
for further action consis-
tent with this Opinion.
IT
IS SO ORDERED.
I,
Christan
L. Moffett, Clerk of the Illinois Pollution
Control Board, herçby certify
e abo e Opinion and Order was
adopted on the
j*/~ day of
_______________,
1978 by
a vote
of
3.Q
Christan
L. Moffe ~~Clerk
Illinois Pollution Control Board
3 2—245