ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL

BOARD

December 20, 1973

MIDWEST FREIGHT CAR COMPANY,

Petitioner,

v.

)

PCB

73—415

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY,

Respondent.

OPINION AND ORDER OF THE BOARD

(by

Mr.

Henss)

Petitioner operates

a railroad freight car repair and

remodeling business in Clinton,

Illinois and contracted

to

modify 320 refrigerator cars into boxcars for Missouri—

Pacific Railway Company.

In

the

modification program a signifi-

cant amount of material was removed from the refrigerator cars.

Some of this was waste and has already been disposed of, but

the Company still has on hand 800 doors,

4400 meat rails and 25

car sets of insulation.

Petitioner states that the insulation

will be disposed of as refuse, but that the doors and meat rails

contain recyclable material which can be salvaged.

Petitioner proposes to salvage the steel by open burning

the wood from the doors

and meat rails.

For this purpose Midwest

requests a variance to allow open burning on its premises for a

maximum of

90 days.

Although the Petition did not specify from

which Rule or Regulation relief was

sought,

we shall interpret

the language to be

a request for variance from Section 9(c)

of

the Environmental Protection Act and Rule 502 of the Open Burning

Regulations.

Each of the 800 doors contains an estimated 30

lbs.

of wood

and 170 lbs.

of steel.

Each meat rail consists of a piece of

wood about

2” x

3” x 20’ which is secured to a 100

lb. piece of

steel by steel brackets.

Petitioner estimated total salvageable

steel in the doors and meat rails to be about

5 carloads.

The

wood allegedly is free of any oil or petroleum by-products.

Petitioner stated that an extreme hardship will be forced

on the Company if it

is required to bury the doors and meat rails

10—453

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since there are no approved landfill sites within 20 miles

of Clinton.

Petitioner felt the open burning would not “work

a hardship” on the Clinton community since the burning could

be completed within 90 days and it would be a “one—time type

of thing”.

Midwest indicated that additional work of this

nature is not scheduled and that it does not know of any possi-

bility of doing such work in the foreseeable future.

An Agency representative visited the proposed burning site

on October

1,

1973.

Based on information obtained during the

visit, the Agency estimated that 95.5 tons of waste material

would be burned.

The Agency calculated emissions from open

burning or burning aided by an air curtain destructor

as follows:

Emission

Open Burning

Air Curtain Destructor

Particulates

1,623.5 lbs.

440 lbs.

NOx

191.0 lbs.

382.

lbs.

CO

4,775.0 lbs.

Not available

Hydrocarbons

382.0

lbs.

23 lbs.

The Agency also claimed that galvanized metal would be included

in the open burning and that this could release other contaminants

into the atmosphere such

as lead or cadmium.

Galvanized steel

is

steel that has been coated with

a layer of zinc.

In the Illinois

Institute for Environmental Quality document Health Effects and

Recommendations

for Atmospheric Lead,

Cadmium, Mercury and Asbestos,

it was reported that air pollution from cadmium emissions is mostly

in the area around zinc refineries and smelters

(P.

25).

Cadmium

is contained in water discharged by the electroplating industry.

In salt water areas, there is cadmium dissolution from zinc gal-

vanized pipes which are contaminated with cadmium in concentrations

of

1

or more

(P.

26).

Apparently cadmium is contained in galvan-

ized steel

as an impurity in the zinc coating.

The report was less specific on the relationship of lead to

galvanized metal.

The Agency did not elaborate on the possible release of lead

or cadmium during the proposed open burning.

Petitioner failed

to even mention the possibility.

While the Agency could have pro-

vided more information to sustain its statement,

it was absolutely

incumbent on Petitioner to provide

a concise statement of any

adverse effects the public might suffer because of the variance.

The information contained in the IIEQ document certainly poses the

possibility that cadmium could be released during open burning of

10—454

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material which contains galvanized metal.

We cannot accept the

statement by Petitioner that the public would not suffer any

adverse effects from the burning merely because the burning

would be a one—time occurrence spread out over

90 days.

The Agency estimated that about 256 tons of steel could be

realized from the salvage operation.

We concur fully with

Petitioner’s belief that it would be a terrible waste of national

resources to bury this much recyclable steel.

One of Petitioner’s

employees informed the Agency that it would cost Petitioner $5500

to dispose of the material at an approved landfill site.

The

value of the scrap steel was placed at $11,545.

One obvious alternative to placing the material in a landfill

or open burning as is, would be to separate the wood from the

metal.

The steel could be salvaged and,

if a hardship is shown,

the wood could be burned.

Petitioner did not state whether this

method had been considered.

Also, we were not told whether an

air curtain destructor is available.

Midwest is in the business of repairing and remodeling various

kinds of freight cars and should be fully aware that the expense

of proper disposal of waste materials must be borne as part of the

cost of doing business.

Environmental protection laws must be

obeyed unless such laws are shown to create an unreasonable and

arbitrary hardship.

Petitioner has failed to fully consider the

environmental impact of open burning in this case and has failed

to prove that compliance with the law would create an unreasonable

hardship.

Therefore,

the Petition for Variance is denied without

prejudice.

IT

IS SO ORDERED.

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

Board, hereby certify the above Opinion and Order was adopted

this

Qo”

day of

___________,

1973 by a vote of

4

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