ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD

January

8,

1976

REPUBLIC STEEL CORPORATION,

)

)

Petitioner,

v.

)

PCB 74—481

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY,

)

Respondent.

CONCURRING OPINION

(by Mr.

Duinelle):

One of my reasons for concurring in this action is that the

time of compliance is already past.

Under the Settlement in the

Circuit Court cases cited

(p.

2 of Opinion)

compliance was to be

achieved by December 31,

1975.

All this action does now is to

protect Republic Steel from retrospective Agency prosecution.

The

company should have been in compliance on December 31,

1973.

The record is not adequate on the question of cyanide

discharges and their effects upon Lake Michigan as far as the

Chicago drinking water intakes or beaches are concerned.

Dis-

charges

as high as 0.8 mg/i of cyanide have occurred

(Petition,

p.

5) which is

400

times the drinking water standard of 0.2 mg/i.

But these values are based upon “weekly 24—hour composite samples”

(Petition,

p.

5) and thus shorter period “slug” discharges could

have been much higher in strength.

The

Calumet

River

at times drains to Lake Michigan.

If

no dilution water

is being drawn through the O’Brien Locks,

the inflow to the River of effluents such as Republic’s must

necessarily result in a lakeward flow.

Or precipitation

might cause storm flows from nearby drained areas to contribute

to flow reversals of the Calumet River perhaps even with simultaneous

O’Brien Locks water demand.

A recent study,

“Water Pollution Investigation:

Calumet Area

of

Lake

Michigan”,

October

1974,

was

done

by

Dr.

Richard

H.

Snow of the lIT Research Institute under U.S. Environmental

Protection Agency funding.

The~following statement appears in

the report.

19

—

552 A

---

—2—

The Caluinet River is also polluted, but its

flow is reversed so that it does not normally

drain to Lake Michigan.

Flow in the Calumet

River is controlled by the O’Brien Lock and

is directed to the Cal-Sag Channel except

during periods of heavy flooding or very low

lake levels.

Outward flow can also occur if

effluent from Lever Bros.

through Wolf Lake

exceeds the flow through O’Brien Locks.

Just

at the mouth of the Caluinet River the flow is

usually outward, because U.S. Steel Company

discharges water from the Lake into the south

slip just inside the River mouth (Technical

Committee 1970).

(p.6).

(emphasis added)

Thus, the record

in this case is not adequate to determine

if Chicago drinking water cyanide levels were excessive because of

Republic.

It would have been a simple matter to include Chicago

water system data

in this record but it was not done.

And no

data are presented on cyanide levels at the beaches near the mouth

of the Calumet River.

The reasons for the 2—year delay in Republic’s compliance,

from December 31,

1973 to the present December

31, 1975,

are not

clear.

And the various Circuit Court cases are not binding upon

this Board since

it was not a party.

All things considered

I concur in this decision reluctantly

and only to prevent a grant of the variance by operation of law.

Submitted by

I, Christan L. Moffett, Clerk of the Illinois Pollution Control

Board, hereby certify the above Concurring Opinion was submitted on

the

jg4~

day of April,

1976.

Illinois Pollution

i Board

19

—

552