ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD

August

9,

1973

ALTON BOX BOARD COMPANY,

Petitioner,

vs.

)

 PCB 73-140

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY,

Respondent.

Karl Hoagland, Attorney for Alton Box Board Company

Frederick Flopper, Assistant Attorney General for the EPA

OPINION AND ORDER OF THE BOARD

 (by Mr. Henss)

Alton Box Board Company requests variance from Sections

402,

 403,

404

(a)

(i)

404 (b)

(1)

 405 and 408(a) (b)

and

(c)

of

Part IV, Chapter

 3, Water Pollution Regulations of Illinois

and Section 12(a)

 of the Environmental Protection Act.

The

Company states that variance from these water quality and

effluent standards will be needed until construction

 is completed,

about December 1977,

 on a proposed new waste water treatment

facility.

The mill in question is located within the city limits of

Alton in Madison County and borders the Mississippi River below

Alton Lock and Dam #26.

 It is

 the largest of

 4 paperboard mills

owned by the Company.

 Approximately 800 tons of paperhoard are

produced daily by the millts 720 employees.

 It consumes 735 tons

of coal daily,

 93 tons of processed chemicals,

 600 tons of re—

claimed wastepaper,

568

 tons of wood chips and

 8 to 10 million

gallons of water.

 Petitioner owns

 a total of 43 plants located

in

 15 states in its fully integrated production

 of paperboard

packaging products.

The record indicates that Alton Box has made some progress

over the past

 11 years in its attempt to conform to existing

regulations.

 A May 18, 1964 letter from the Sanitary Water Board

acknowledges a 2/3 reduction in fibre content of the Company

effluent.

 After failure of an experimental control program

Alton installed an 8.5 MGD wastewater clarifier and sludge

removal system.

 In April 1967 the Sanitary Water Board said the

new system could ~‘provideadequate treatment to the tributary

—

—2—

industrial wastes for some years

 to come’t,

 if afforded proper

maintenance and operational control.

 Under SWB—l3, the Alton

mill was required to have secondary treatment by December 1982.

On January 19,

 1971 the Environmental Protection Agency

advised Petitioner by letter

 (Petitioner Exhibit #23)

 that newly

adopted regulations now required secondary treatment for the mill

effluent by December 31,

 1973.

In April 1971 Petitioner hired Mid—America Engineers Incor-

 porated to do

 a feasibility study relating to the liquid wastes

(Exhibit 24).

 Although the study was to have been completed

within

 8 weeks,

 it was not received until September 16,

 1971.

The recommendations of the study were not followed, allegedly be-

cause Petitioner did not choose to accept undesirable pollutional

trade-offs inherent in the plan.

 Evidence also shows that in

April 1971 Alton Box hired

 a St. Louis firm of consulting engineers

to assist in obtaining permits and for consultation on other

phases of

 their pollution abatement problems

 (Petitioner Exhibit

#26).

 During May 1971 two Alton Box officials toured six other

mill sites

 to determine how other paper mills were treating their

liquid effluent before discharge.

 Mid—America Engineers wasre—

quested to perform additional studies and subsequently provided

Petitioner with revisions that were found acceptable.

Alton Box adopted

 a program which called for the complete

elimination of wood chips

 from the process in order to abate the

troublesome black liquor effluent.

 This would leave reclamation

and recycling of wastepaper

 (increased to 950 tons per day)

as

the

primary source of raw material.

 Under this plan,

 Alton Box would

be able to reduce its use of land for aeration,

 lagoons and ponds.

The time schedule for the

 4 stage program is

 as follows:

Stage

1:

Install processing equipment for converting the entire

operation to reclamation of wastepaper.

Time required

 18 months

Estimated completion date

—

 September 19,

1974

Effects:

 BOD-25 lbs./ton or 20,000 lbs. per day

80

reduction

Suspended Solids

 5 lbs./ton or 2,000 lbs.

per day

 37.5

 reduction

Stage

2:

 (simultaneous with Stage

1)

Phase out woodchips and phase in new sources of

reclaimed waste paper

 (i.e., expansion of the

paper reclamation division).

9

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—3—

Time required

—

 18 months

Estimated completion date

 September 1974

Effects:

 (incorporated in effects shown for Stage

1)

Stage

3:

Close the mill process water system by reducing number

of discharge water points.

Time required

 24 months

Estimated completion date

—

 September 1976

Effects:

 BOD—20 lbs./ton or 16,000 lbs. per day

—

85

reduction

Suspended solids

 0.125 lbs./ton or 100

 lbs.

per day

 98.4

 reduction

Stage

4:

Secondary treatment of residual flow

Time required

 15 months

Estimated completion date

—

 December 1977

Effects:

 Compliance with Regulations

Under Stage

 1, Petitioner plans to install

 2 new hydropulpers,

enlarge and revise the asphalt dispersion system, and construct

stock

 tower and conveyor system for feeding the wastepaper to the

hydropulper and cleaners.

 Alton Box claims that the

 18 month time

frame was supplied by the hydropulper manufacturing firm and in-

cludes time required to design,

 fabricate,

 deliver and install

the equipment so as to intermesh with the existing reclaimed fibre

system.

 As noted above,

 Stage

 2 would occur simultaneously with

Stage

1.

Petitioner advises that the extremely complex nature of

Stage

 3 (eliminating

 a great number of discharge water points)

delays its commencement until Stage 1 has been completed.

 This

seems reasonable to us.

Installation of

 a new clarifier originally called for in

Stage

 4 has now been programmed for installation during Stage

1.

Alton Box claims that as much of Stage

 4 as possible has been

accelerated and advanced into the earlier stages.

Alton Box submitted this program to the Agency along with a

Project Completion Schedule on August 25,

 1972,

 and followed with

permit application on September

29,

 1972.

 On December 18,

 1972,

the Environmental Protection Agency rejected the Project Completion

Schedule because of the obvious failure of the proposed system to

be in full operation by December 31, 1973

 as reauired by Regulation,

and several administrative inadequacies.

 The permit was then

denied because there was no approved Project Completion Schedule

9—17

—4—

and because of failure to provide a complete list of contaminants

discharged and their concentrations.

After

 a series of meetings with the Agency and their consulting

engineers, Alton Box submitted a revised Project Completion

Schedule and permit application giving the following information:

Current average daily flow

 9,600,000 GPD

Designed average daily flow

——

 14,400,000 GPD

Current influent BOD

 1,500 mg/i

Current influent suspended solids

—-

 1,800 mg/l

On page

 5 of the Mid-America Engineer’s Report (Exhibit #31) we

note

 a column titled “Mill Effluent’t under which BOD and suspended

solids were shown to be 1450 mg/i and 300 mg/i respectively.

It

could not be determined whether the

 ‘Mill Effluent” was the infiuent

to the waste treatment works or

 the effluent to the Mississippi

River.

Page

 10 of this same report contained the following table:

Present

 Future

 Reduction

Total Process effluent

 10,600 gal/ton

 1,250 gal/ton

88

Total BOD5 Discharge

 133 lb/ton

 4 lb/ton

97

Total Suspended Solid

discharge

 7.45 lb/ton

 1/8 lb/ton

 98.3

Calculations from this Table reveal that the present discharges for

BOD and suspended solids are about 1,500 mg/i and 90 mg/i respectively.

The BOD figure obtained by this calculation for Processed Discharge

is exactly the same figure given for “Current Influent BOD”.

 Com-

pounding the confusion,

 as the Agency points out,

 a discharge of

4 lbs.

 BOD per ton of production in an effluent of 1,250 gallon per

ton yields about 384 mg/i,

 far in excess of the 20 mg/i which

Petitioner claims will be the BOD concentration upon completion

of

all stages of the proposed abatement program.

Also at issue in this proceeding was the question whether the

receiving stream was the Mississippi River or

 a tributary ~:et

Mississippi River known as Shields

 Branch.

 In granting the 1965

permit,

 the SWB classified Petitioner’s discharge as being directly

to the Mississippi River.

 However,

 the Agency contends that the

discharge actually entered Shields Branch about 1/4 mile before

reaching the Mississippi River.

 If we upheld the Agency~sposition,

the effluent criteria imposed on Alton Box would not be 20 mg/i BOD

and 25 mg/i suspended solids as Petitioner thought but a more

stringent

 4 mg/i BOD and 5 mg/i suspended solids.

9—

—5—

We hold that the higher standard for emissions to the

Mississippi River is applicable here.

 Evidence indicated that

Shields Branch as it was once known,

 no longer exists.

 A former

Alton Box Board employee and long-time resident of the area

testified that the spring feeding the Branch had been capped or

plugged sometime in the past causing the Branch to become

essentially a stagnant no—flow ditch.

 The Agency offered no

evidence on this point.

 Except for periods of wet weather, all

flow upstream of Petitioner’s outfall

is

 the result of industdal

wastewater discharges from other industry in the area.

The

original Shields Branch discharged

 to the Mississippi at

 a point

above the Alton Box property.

 However,

 the erection of a levee

diverted whatever flow the Branch may have carried onto Alton

Box lands.

 An aerial photograph

 (Exhibit #9), marked to delineate

the original course of Shields Branch before diversion,

 appears to

show that the industrial drainage ditch and Shields Branch are two

different courses below a point near the LaClede Steel plant.

Petitioner’s effluent is not at any point in the original course

of Shields Creek.

 The photograph vividly displays Petitioner’s

discharge point to the industrial drainage ditch in that the

ditch becomes very dark.

 The dark liquid is also very evident

at the ditch outfall to the Mississippi River and for some

distance downstream.

 We find that Petitioner’s effluent reaches

the Mississippi in an industrial ditch.

While we are convinced that Alton Box has made a good be-

ginning, we do not believe there is sufficient information for

immediate acceptance of its entire abatement program.

 Petitioner’s

conversion to 100

 reclaimed paper for feedstock will reduce some

pollution problems.

 By removing the wood chips, the black liquor

portion of the present influent to the treatment plant will be

eliminated.

 Upon completion of the entire project, Petitioner

states that an estimated $4.7 million from the corporate’s

$23

million pollution control budget will have been spent.

 This must

be viewed as a significant outlay for a plant as old as the Aiton

mill.

 An air pollution control program for the Alton mill has

already been completed.

However, Petitioner leaves us up in the air by failing to

reveal methods to be used in Stage

 4 to achieve compliance; and

computations of anticipated BOD levels in the influent

(or

effluent)

 leave something to be desired.

Alton Box Board Company stated that

 a variance denial would

cause the termination of operations

 or subject the Company to

possible fines for continued operations beyond December 31,

 1973,

If forced to close, Alton Box claims that an immediate economic

loss of over $12,500,000 would occur which would place the Company

9—19

—6—

in default under its long—term loan agreements.

 Other adverse

effects would be the possible loss of employment of

 721 persons,

loss of payroll,

 loss of State and Federal tax payments and the

loss of production capabilities during a period of severe

shortage of paperboard for paperboard packaging.

 Alton Box

claims that the resulting paperboard shortage could have

 a direct and

serious effect on customer plants employing

 more than 30,000

persons in Illinois alone.

The Environmental Proteciton Agency recommends that we grant

Petitioner

 a variance from Rule 921(a)

and

Cd)

 of Chapter

 3 and

deny all other variances.

 Although Alton Box did not specifically

ask for exemption from those Rules,

 the Agency expressed in their

Recommendation

 a belief that Alton’s Petition should be

 so construed.

 On June 28, 1973 we deleted Rule 921(d)

 from Chapter

 3 therefore

that portion of

 the Agency’s Recommendation is now moot.

The

Agency also expressed

 a belief that Petitioner should have requested

relief from Rule 1002(a)

 of Chapter

3.

The Agency recommends denial on the ground that the hardships

alleged above are self—imposed and not sufficient

 to justify the

grant of

 a variance.

 The Agency has an enforcement case pending

and may fear the effect of a variance on that prosecution case.

lowever,

 the variance is not a shield against prosecution of

violations which occurred before or after the term of the variance.

Using Petitioner’s estimate of HOD discharge of

 106,000 lbs.

per day,

 the Agency calculated that Alton Box was dumping the

ecTuivalent of the untreated sewage of some 623,529 persons into

Illinois waters.

 Petitioner calls

 this

 a factually incorrect

statement representing a blatant and total falsehood,

 the sole

purpose of which was to mislead and prejudice the Board against

Petitioner.

Dr. James

W.

 Irvin, appearing on behalf of Petitioner, testified

that he “would not expect the BOD,

 as anticipated to be discharged

from the Alton Box Board during this intervening period, from

present until their facilities are complete,

 to have

 a significant

effect on the oxygen resource of the Mississippi River”.

 When

asked to describe his statement in language other than

~significant”

Dr.

 Irvin replied:

 “It would have to be an opinion but

 I would not

expect that the present discharge would cause a depression in the

dissolved oxygen of anything more than half

 a milligram a liter”.

(R.

 273)

Dr.

 Irvin later testified pertaining

 to the suspended

solids and Petitioner’s effluent that

‘.

.my opinion is that the

suspended solids discharge

 is rather insignificant”.

(R.

 276)

9—20

—7—

We do not agree with Dr.

 Irvin that an estimated depression

of up to 1/2 milligram per liter dissolved oxygen caused by the

effluent from a single source is insignificant.

 USGS figures

for the twelve month period, October 1970 to September 1971,

 show

that the Mississippi River at Chouteau Island had an average

dissolved oxygen concentration of about 7.3 mg/i

 (Exhibit #56).

Data prepared by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency for

the year 1971 reveals that the Mississippi River at the Illinois

Terminal Road Bridge at East Alton had an average dissolved

oxygen concentration of 8.5 mg/i

 (Water Quality Network,

1971

Summary of Data, Volume 1,

 page 1—229).

 If we adopt Dr.

 Irvin’s

 reasoning,

 we should view

 as insignificant the fact that similar

discharges from an additional

 5 industrial sites in the same area

could reduce the oxygen content of the Mississippi River below

standards.

 We believe the Illinois General Assembly expressed a

different viewpoint in Section 11 of the Environmental Protection

Act:

“It is the purpose of this Title to restore,

maintain and enhance the purity of the waters

of this State.

.“

The Mississippi is not a pure stream and it has a large

capacity but this fact

 is not an excuse for the dumping of large

amounts of waste.

The record in this proceeding demonstrates the need for an

early start on construction of the waste treatment facilities

at

Alton Box Board Company.

 Alton Box has expressed a belief that

construction of the proposed system could begin within two or

three weeks of our decision.

 Delaying a decision until the

conclusion of the enforcement action would not speed the proposed

system along.

 We do not believe our decision today places the

Agency’s enforcement case in jeopardy since the dates involved

preceed. the dates for which we intend to grant the variance.

The Agency warns that we “are being given the opportunity to

buy a pig in a poke”.

If

 so, we do not accept the offer.

The

first three stages of the construction program should reduce BOD

by 85

 and suspended solids by 98.4.

 These reductions will not

be sufficient for compliance with our regulations, but they are

none the less significant reductions.

 We have been left in the

dark

 as to the proposed fourth stage system.

 Obviously we can

not approve a proposed system that has not been fully explained

to

us.

 We can, however,

 start the first three stages on their way by

granting a variance with certain conditions.

 Petitioner must be

fully aware that the granting of future variances will depend upon

adherence to the conditions and that such future variances should

not be considered assured.

 We will expect a discussion of possible

9—21

—8—

alternatives for Stage

 4 upon the first request for variance

extension.

ORDER

It is

 tile

Order of the Board that:

1.

 Alton Box Board. Company is granted a variance

from Rules

 402,

 403, 404(a) Ci)

 and.

 (b)(i),

405

408(a),

 (b),

and

 Cc), and 921(a)

 of the Water

Pollution Regulations of Illinois and a limited

variance from Section 12 (a)

 of the Environmental

Protection Act from April

6,

 1973 until April

6,

1974

 for the purpose of constructing the proposed

 new process and waste water treatment facilities

as described by documents

 submitted. during this

proceeding.

 The variance from Section 12(a) EPA

shall be applicable only as to HOD and suspended

solids levels.

 We are not at this time granting

a variance for the discharge of any contaminants

which were not considered in this Opinion.

2.

 Petitioner shall by September 13,

 1973 post a

bond in the amount of $500,000 in

 a form acceptable

to the Environmental Protection Agency,

 such bond

to be forfeited in the event Petitioner fails to

install and operate the abatement equipment described

in this proceeding and equipment to be described at

a later date.

 The bond shall be mailed to Fiscal

Services Division,

 Illinois EPA,

 2200 Churchill

Road,

 Springfield,

 Illinois 62706.

3.

 This variance is conditioned upon the submission of

monthly progress reports commencing September 15,

1973 to the Agency describing the status of con-

struction and installation of the proposed new

process and waste treatment plant and upon

a

silowing of satisfactory progress in the installation.

4.

 As further condition,

 Petitioner shall by September 30,

1973 submit to the Board and the Agency data that

precisely and clearly shows current and anticipated

concentrations of all contaminants cited in Part

4

of the Water Pollution Regulations of Illinois for

 the mill influent liquid to and effluent liquid from

the waste water treatment works.

9—22

—9—

Petitioner

shall

diligently

attempt

expedite

the

construction

the

new

waste

treatment

plant

all

stages.

Quarterly

reports

commencing

December

1973

shall

submitted

the

Agency

showing

progress

 or lack of progress being made

toward

the

selection

methods

installed

during

Stage

Christan

Moffett,

Clerk

the

Illinois

Pollution

Control

Board, hereby certify the above Opinion and

Order

was

adopted

this

 ~j~’

 day of August,

 1973 by a vote of

~

 to C~

•.~•;

~.‘

—