ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD

February

3,

1977

ALTON BOX BOARD COMPANY,

Petitioner,

v.

)

PCB 74—491

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY,

Respondent.

Mr. Karl

K.

Hoagland,

Jr. of Hoagland, Maucker, Bernard

& Almeter

appeared on behalf of Petitioner;

Mr.

Robert

N. Reiland, Assistant Attorney General for the State of

Illinois and Mr. Robert Barewin, Attorney Illinois Environmental

Protection Agency appeared on behalf of Respondent.

OPINION AND ORDER OF THE BOARD

(by Mr. Goodman):

On March

26, 1975 the Board adopted Opinion and Order herein

extending a previously granted variance

to Alton Box Board Company

(Alton)

subject to a number of conditions.

Included

in the condi-

tions were paragraphs

6 and 12 of the Board Order as modified on

May 22,

1975.

These conditions required Alton to submit

a report

setting forth an engineering program acceptable

to the Agency

for

disposal of the sludge removed from sludge lagoons

or clarifier and

also to submit to the Agency an acceptable abatement program from the

water treatment facility to the ditch

on the north side of the Alton

paper mill property.

The Board implicitly held jurisdiction

for the

purpose of settling any issues between the Illinois Environmental

Protection Agency

(Agency)

and Alton with respect

to Agency acceptance

of Alton~spresentations under paragraphs

6 and

12 of the Board Order.

On September 29, 1975 the Board received the Agency’s comments

concerning Alton’s response to paragraphs

6 and 12 of the Board Order

of May 12,

1975 announcing the responses were not acceptable

to the

Agency.

On October

9,

1975 the Board ordered the parties

to hearing

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677

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on the matter.

Hearing was held en July 12 and 13, t~7jin conjunc-

tion with PCB 75-508 and FCB

75-496

an enforcement action and variance

petition respectively bet een

:h

p~rti?s nerein.

This Opirior

of

tlie hoard will consider only the issue of whether

or

not Alton’s suarnissions

to the Agency were responsixe

to paragraphs

6 and 12 of the Board Ordor o

M y 2~, 1975.

In its letter

to the

Board on September 2~ 19Th the

qcrey listed its ob~ections to the

report submitted by

PJ

~on

Th compliance with

The aforementioned para-

graphs of the May 22,

19Th &rder.

With regard to the response

to

paragraph

12, the Agencj said “The Bo~r(snouTh

tare note of the fact

that the proposed di~iei~inromp

e~wiTh its

)rder only insofar

as

the proposed divers~on ~r

p:o~ab1eunder the terms

of paragriph

6 of

the subject O1der~

The ioency u~en

ocr on to say in effect that

since

it has Lejected the rcrponse

cc

~aqraph

6,

the response to

paragraph

12

is rciecead

~ofar

~e1ates

to the water treatment

plant discharge aba~me~ p Threw

i~

cragraph

6

The issue in

this matter,

cnerefcic, rarro~sde1i~ o the Aiton response to para-

graph

6 of the Boar

Ord

of hay

17 ~

AltonTh response

Th

Jitdbi3pi

c

~f

ice Order is contained

in Ex-

hibit No. AB—9 herein.

I

The 1c~~r to

The Board datTh September 25,

1975, the Agency ctcfes

t it rejects

ThiS submission and carefully

sets forth the i~acis ft

he rejsctaen

Alton, of course,

claimed

that its submissici enu~

rae ~ap

6 of

he Board Order was

a

suitable

response

to the tid~

Alton, when

aced

ith a hocyd Order indicating that the Board in-

tended to use the Agei~y

S

Lxpertise in determining the effectiveness

of a proposed abatement procedure

failed

Lo contact the Agency

whose

approval was neeess~y.

Instead it developed the proposal

on

its own

and dropped it “cold turkey”

on tLe Agency when

it was due.

The Agency,

upon receipt of this engineering report, did not contact Alton

to point

out the deficiencies of the report and attempt to correct the

situation,

but rather sent a letter to the Board complaining that the report

was

not acceptable.

rfhe

purpos?

~t the B drd

in setting comp1ianc~ dates

for engineer-

ing reports end proposed pro ~edures is

to set a time frame

in which

the

abatement of pollution may be accomplished.

It

is not the

purpose of

the Board to force

a polluter to complete

an exercise

in

engineering

for which the Agency must ~.teterminewhether

it deserves

a passing

grade.

Both parties should have worked together in this matter to develop a

reasonable procedure to be used to abate

the pollution.

Bare

exercises

in report writing have no place

in this procedure.

With respect to the report presented by Alton under paragraph

6

of the Board Order,

the Beard is inclined to agree with the Agency

that

much necessary information was lacking.

On the other hand the

Board

finds no evidence of

bcid faith by Alton in this submission but

rather

~

678

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3—

an unfortunate lack of sense of the scope of the problem and the purpose

of the Board Order.

Considering that a permit with respect to para-

graph

6 has been issued by the Agency,

the Board finds

the issue here-

in moot.

Mr. James Young abstained.

I, Christan L. Moffett,

Clerk of the Illinois Pollution ç~ntrol

Board,

y certify the above Opinion was adopted on the

~3~”

day of

1977 by a vote of

4-p

-

Illinois Pollution

trol Board

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