ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
September 30, 1976
THE METROPOLITAN SANITARY DISTRICT
OF GREATER CHICAGO,
)
Petitioner,
v.
)
PCB 76-54
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY,
Respondent.
OPINION AND ORDER OF THE BOARD
(by Mr. Dumelle):
Petition for Variance from Rule 405 of Chapter
3 of the
Water Pollution Control Regulations was filed by the Metropolitan
Sanitary district o~Greater Chicago
(“District”) on February
27,
1976.
The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency
(“Agency”)
filed its Recommendation on April
9,
1976.
A public hearing was
held on July
30,
1976.
Waivers of the 90-day decision period
have been received running until October
8,
1976.
The District asks to be relieved of the requirement to
chlorinate its effluent from the West-Southwest Sewage Treatment
Plant
(“W-SW”)
in Stickney for a period of five years or until:
1.
The effect of disinfection of
sewage treatment effluent and the
economic feasibility in connection
therewith has been fully resolved.
2.
This Board reconsiders the require-
ment set forth under Section 405
of Chapter III of the Illinois Pollu-
tion Control Board Rules and Regulations,
or any other applicable section.
The District’s main arguments are threefold:
1.
Chlorination poses a significant health
threat to the environment and to humans.
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2.
Chlorination provides no significant
beneficial environmental impact.
3.
Chlorination imposes an arbitrary and
unreasonable hardship upon the District
taxpayers in that costs
in excess of
$1,000,000 annually are incurred with
no benefits to the environment.
The Agency’s Recommendation is for a one—year variance grant
for Battery D at W-SW but a denial as to variance for Batteries A,B,
and C.
THE HEALTH THREAT
The District discusses the National Organics Reconnaissance
Survey,
initiated November 1974, which concluded that four volatile
organics are formed by the chlorination of drinking water.
These
chemicals are chloroform, brornodichioromethane, dibromochloro—
methane, and brornoform.
Some of these are said to be carcinogenic.
Viruses are said by the District not to be greatly reduced
by chlorination because of the turbidity of the effluent and the
low viricidal properties of the chioramines
(which are formed
with the ammonia in the effluent).
Lastly, the District asserts that fish can be harmed by low
concentrations of
free and combined chlorine and by chlorainines.
Fishing may be precluded in the District waterways by chlorination,
according
to the District.
NO SIGNIFICANT BENEFIT
The District presents data to show that fecal coliform levels
downstream return to their prechiorination levels due to regrowth.
Total coliform levels at Peoria are shown to be higher in 1974 than
in 1966 when chlorination was not practiced.
ARBITRARY AND UNREASONABLE HARDSHIP
Because of the foregoing assertions, the District feels that
its present expenditure at W—SW in excess of $1,000,000 per year
constitutes an arbitrary and unreasonable hardship.
DISCUSSION
The Agency feels that the entire matter of sewage treatment
plant effluent disinfection is more appropriately the function
of a regulatory proceeding.
The cost of chlorination alone is
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not a hardship since W-SW is the world’s largest sewage treatment
plant.
On a flow basis,
it treats the population equivalent
of 8,500,000 persons
(using 100 gpcd on its 1975 treated flow
of 850 MGD).
Thus any of its expenditures can be expected to
be large in absolute amounts.
The District’s contention that at least four volatile organic
chemicals are formed by chlorination at W—SW is not borne out
by this record.
The District, which is well equipped with laboratories
and qualified personnel, has presented no data showing that these
organics are in fact formed at W-SW.
We are thus left with data
applicable to drinking water which may react differently than
sewage plant effluent.
The Alleged carcinogenic properties of
these chemicals awaits a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study
and report which has not yet been made.
Furthermore, the origin of
the bromine found in three of the volatile organics listed is not
given.
Thus the essential elemental ingredients for these chemicals
may not even be present.
The virus question is quite similar.
The W-SW plant has been
experiencing excellent effluents low in both suspended solids and
BOD5
as stated many times before this Board.
Thus its effluent
turbidity may in fact be far lower than those of other sewage treat-
ment plants and its virus kill thus correspondingly greater.
Again,
actual data seems
to be called for to substantiate the District’s
assertion.
The possibility that chlorine levels may preclude fish life
in District waterways is a moot point since dissolved oxygen
levels are presently too low to support fish.
Until the Tunnel
and Reservoir Plan and/or instream aeration projects are on
line fish would not generally be able to survive.
No timetable
is
given for the activation of these improvements.
Fecal coliform is used as an indicator organism.
Its decrease
implies a decrease in pathogenic
organisms like
shigella, salmonella,
(typhoid and cholera)
and dysentery.
Its subsequent increase may not
prove a parallel increase in the pathogens.
Again, actual data could
answer this point.
The various combined sewer overflow points to the
waterways may be the contributors to the high fecal coliform levels or
they may not.
The record is not clear on this point. The sampling
frequency appears to be different.
What is important is the relation-
ship of sampling to rainfall events and this
is not given.
The data presented in Exhibit “A”
(Table
5)
showing total
coliform levels at Peoria higher in 1974 than in 1966 is not conclu-
sive for two reasons.
First,
the data are for total and not for
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fecal coliforms.
Total coliforms may be of vegetable origin which
in turn may come from land runoff and not from
W—SW.
Second, the
sampling frequency for the years compared is significantly different.
The District makes an argument that no recreational use would
be made of waterways with their 2,000,000 tons per month of commercial
commerce.
We must distinguish several points here.
First, the
instant variance applies to W-SW which is on the Sanitary and
Ship Canal.
Most of the 24,000,000 tons
(annual basis)
alluded to
is probably registered up the Canal to the junction with the
Cal-Sag Channel and thence to Lake Calumet.
In other words the
traffic densities referred to probably does not occur in the vicinity
of W—SW.
Secondly, pleasure craft do in fact use the waterways.
Personnel on these craft handle lines and may otherwise come into
contact with the waters.
Thus there is recreational use of
these
waterways.
The District makes no mention of the capital cost of the chlori-
nation facility for Battery D that has gone unfunded.
It does not
explore alternatives which might lower the cost of disinfection by
as much as
50
such as using bulk chlorine as
is done at City of
Chicago water plants.
The District is presently overdosing the effluents from
Batteries A,B,
and C to try to meet standards in the combined
W-SW effluent.
In
February 1976 they met the standard.
In
January they did not.
It
is not clear
if the standard is
impossible to attain on
a regular basis.
Perhaps the provision of
baffles in the effluent conduit to provide better mixing would be
of value.
The Board agrees with the Agency that the issues raised
here are better presented in a regulatory proceeding.
Specific
W—SW
plant data is lacking in this record and the variance is denied
without prejudice.
The Petitioner has not carried its burden.
This opinion constitutes the Board’s findings of fact and
conclusions of law.
ORDER
Variance from Rule 405 of Chapter
3
is denied without prejudice.
IT
IS SO
ORDERED.
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I, Christan
L. Moffett, Clerk of the Illinois Pollution Control
Board, hereby certify the above Opinion and Order were adopted on the
~~day
of September, 1976 by a vote of
4.~
-.
~anL~~f&fl~
Illinois Pollution C
ol Board
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