ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
    March 28, 1977
    NORTH SHORE SANITARY
    DISTRICT,
    )
    Petitioner,
    v.
    )
    PCB 76—244
    ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY, )
    Respondent.
    ORDER OF THE BOARD (by Mr. Dumelle):
    This matter comes before the Board on an Amended Petition
    For Reconsideration filed by Petitioner North Shore Sanitary
    District (NSSD) on January 11, 1977. The original Petition for
    Variance concerning the subject matter of this case was designated
    PCB 76-194, was filed on July 19, 1976, and dismissed as inadequate
    on July 22, 1976. NSSD refiled its Petition for Variance on
    September 3, 1976 as PCB 76—226. This Petition also was dismissed
    as inadequate on September 16, 1976. NSSD once again refiled a
    Petition for Variance on September 30, 1976. This Petition was
    designated PCB 76-244 and was disthissed on October 14, 1976 as
    inadequate. NSSD filed a Petition to reconsider this latest
    dismissal on October 25, 1976. After the Board denied reconsidera-
    tion on December 2, 1976 NSSD filed the instant Amended Petition
    For Reconsideration.
    After 3 dismissals and 1 denial of reconsideration the
    Board decided to disregard the demonstrated inability of NSSD
    to file a Petition for Variance which complies with the require-
    ments of the Act and the Board’s Procedural Rules. In the hopes
    that the Agency’s Recommendation in this matter would remedy
    some of the inadequacies of the NSSD Petitions, the Board rein-
    stated NSSD’s Amended Petition for Reconsideration. The burden,
    of course, rests with NSSD. The Agency filed its Recommendation
    on March 16, 1977. Even given the Agency’s willingness to
    recommend a grant of the requested Variance, the Board could
    not grant a variance on the basis of the record in this case
    without being arbitrary and capricious. There still remains
    two issues regarding which the Petitions (all five of them)
    are woefully inadequate. NSSD has simply failed to provide
    sufficient allegation of facts or conclusions to support a
    finding that a denial of the requested variance would force it,
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    or anyone else, to bear an arbitrary or unreasonable hardship.
    NSSD seeks a variance to allow the connection of somewhere
    between 25 and 100 homes onto its overloaded sewage system.
    No facts or conclusions are alleged on the issue of hardship
    other than that someone, somewhere, may not be fully enjoying
    their property rights. NSSD has not identified those parties
    upon whom the alleged hardship will fall. Neither has NSSD
    given any evidence on the extent of this alleged hardship.
    Have these 25-100 homes been built? If so, when were they
    built? Are they all currently on septic systems? Are they
    purchased and occupied? These very basic issues have not
    been addressed.
    The Act and the Procedural Rules give ample direction
    to potential applicants for variances. The Board’s Order of
    December 2, 1976 detailed its reasons for dismissal and, for
    the fourth time, directed NSSD to follow Procedural Rule 401.
    The Board directly asked “...how many, if any, of the houses
    to be connected were constructed after the sewer ban went into
    effect. Information should also be provided how these houses
    are presently disposing of their wastes”. NSSD did not respond
    to this request. NSSD chose to rest with a Petition which is
    clearly inadequate on its face.
    Inasmuch as the NSSD has repeatedly failed to supply
    crucial information and the Agency’s Recommendation failed to
    adduce that information, the Board must dismiss the instant
    Petition for Variance.
    The record in the instant case was disjointed and poorly
    organized. If NSSD again chooses to file a new Petition for Variance
    such Petition shall represent a consolidation of all pertinent
    information and argument. No incorporation by reference to
    documents in past proceedings in this matter will be permitted.
    There is no reason for the Board to waste its resources screening
    and analyzing repeated, patently inadequate Petitions, especially
    from attorneys who have appeared before the Board before. The
    Board has made use of substantial effort and substantial restraint
    in dealing with the present case. Yet the apparent unwillingness
    of NSSD to submit even a colorably adequate Petition for Variance
    is unreasonable. The instant Petition for Variance is hereby
    dismissed as inadequate. The dismissal, this time, is without
    prejudice to the filinq of a new case in accordance with the
    instructions above.
    IT IS SO ORDERED.
    I, Christan L. Moffett, Clerk of the Illinois Pollution
    Control Board, hereby certify the above Order was adopted on the
    ce”
    day of March, 1977 by a vote of ~
    ~stanL.Moffcl~~~
    Illinois Pollution Control Board
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