ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD

February

27,

1973

VILLAGE

OF MT. AUBURN

vs.

)

PCB 72—213

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

Vernon Houchen,

Attorney

for Petitioner

Thomas

J.

Immel, Assistant Attorney General for the EPA

OPINION AND ORDER OF THE BOARD

(by Mr. Henss)

The village of

Mt. Auburn requests

a variance

from Section

9(c)

of the Environmental Protection Act and from Chapter

2, Part V of

Pollution Control Board Rules and Regulations

to allow open burning

of l~avesand paper by village residents for an indefinite period.

Mt.

Auburn has approximately 550 residents.

Subsequent to the filing of the petition we amended our Open

Burning Regulations to allow the open burning of leaves and other

landscape waste in most municipalities

(including Mt. Auburn) under

2,500 in population.

Under the Regulation now in effect the open

burning of leaves

is authorized

in Mt. Auburn provided the burning

takes place on the premises where the leaves are generated,

does not

create

a visibility hazard and is

conducted at

a

time when the atmos-

pheric conditions will readily dissipate the contaminants.

Since the

Regulation has been amended to authorize such open burning in Mt.

Auburn, Petitioner has no need for a variance to burn leaves.

The

Petition for Variance to burn leaves is therefore dismissed as moot.

The Village presented four witnesses in support of their Petition.

A consideration of that evidence does not persuade us that Mt. Auburn

has

any uniaue problem in disposing of papers.

A garbage and trash

packer truck makes one pick up each week at each residence in the

Village.

This material is then taken seventeen miles

to the Harristown

landfill.

For this service each householder pays $2.50 per month to

the

Robert Ridgeway Disposal Service.

It has been the practice for

Mt.

Auburn residents to burn their paper, but Mr. Ridgeway apparently

does not have any limitation on the quantity of material he will

collect.

He does collect

some paper at this time.

It was estimated

that collection costs would rise to $7.50 per month per household if

the disposal service had to collect both leaves and paper.

It was

not estimatc~what increase in cost there might be from adding paper

alone to th:~pick up.

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149

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We fail

to find any arbitrary or unreasonable hardship in

Mt.

Auburn’s compliance with the Regulation.

Many people in many munici—

palities are faced with similar costs.

These costs do not seem

excessive when weighed against the need for a cleaner environment.

Mt. Auburn has proved that a method of compliance is readily available.

We will expect Petitioner and the residents of Mt. Auburn to comply

with the Open Burning Regulation in all respects.

ORDER

The Petition for Variance

for. open burning of leaves

is dismissed

as moot.

The Petition for Variance for open burning of papers is denied.

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

Boar,~d, hereby c r

ify the above Opinion and Order was adopted this

~_day

of

___________,

1973 by

a vote of

~

to 0

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