ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL

BOARD

August 29, 1972

CITY OF JACKSONVILLE

)

v.

)

#72—353

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

Opinion & Order

of

the Board

(by Mr. Currie):

Jacksonville requests a variance to allow its citizens

to burn leaves in October and November 1972, alleging

that

the City has no serious air pollution problem and that the

ban on open burning causes an expense that constitutes an

unreasonable hardship.

Rather than at this point authorizing a hearing, we call

the City’s attention to our procedural rule 401, which spells

out the types of facts that must be alleged in a variance

petition in order to inform the Board and the Environmental

Protection Agency, which must investigate the facts alleged

in order to prepare its recommendation, as to the facts

the

petitioner believes justify the relief it seeks.

The pre-

sent brief and conclusory petition does not satisfy this

rule nor its purpose of allowing the Agency to perform its

investigative and evaluative function.

Nor is

it clear from

the petition that the City is prepared to prove facts which

under our precedents would suffice to justify the grant of

a variance.

We think no one would benefit if we held

a

hearing

only to discover that an important factual element

of the City’s case had inadvertently not been established.

The petition is therefore dismissed without prejudice to the

filing of

a more complete petition.

We call the City’s

attention to our recent decision in the case of City of

Springfield

v.

EPA, #72—143

(Aug.

15, 1972), involving a

somewhat similar request.

I, Christan Moffett, Clerk of the Pollution Control Board,

certify that the Board adopted the above Opinion & Order

—Sd

of the Board this _________day of August,

1972, by

a vote

of

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