ELECTRONIC
FILING,
RECEIVED, CLERKS
OFFICE,
DECEMBER
1,
2005
BEFORE THE
ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
OF THE STATE
OF
ILLINOIS
SOYLAND
POWER
)
COOPERATIVE, INC.
)
Petitioner,
)
)
v.
)
PCB 2006-55
)
(CAAPP
Permit Appeal)
ILLINOIS ENVIRONMENTAL
)
PROTECTION AGENCY,
)
)
Respondent.
)
NOTICE
To:
Dorothy
Gunn, Clerk
Amy
L.
Jackson
Illinois Pollution Control
Board
Rammelkamp Bradney, P.C.
100 West Randolph Street
232 West State
Street
Suite
11-500
P.O. Box
550
Chicago, Illinois 60601
Jacksonville, Illinois 62651
Carol Sudman
Hearing Officer
Illinois Pollution Control
Board
1021 North Grand Avenue East
P.O. Box
19274
Springfield, Illinois 62794-9276
PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that
I have today filed with the Office of the Clerk of
the Illinois Pollution Control
Board the MOTION FOR EXTENSION OF TIME TO
F1LE RECORD of the Respondent, Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, a copy of
which is herewith served upon the assigned Hearing Office
and
the attorney for the
Petitioner.
Respectfully submitted by,
Sally C6fter
Assistant Counsel
Dated: December
1, 2005
Illinois Environmental Protection Agency
1021
North Grand Avenue East
P.O. Box
19276
Springfield,
Illinois 62794-9276
ELECTRONIC
FILING,
RECEIVED, CLERK’S O~FICE,DECEMBER
1,2005
BEFORE THE ILLINOIS POLLUTION
CONTROL BOARD
OF THE STATE
OF ILLINOIS
SOYLAND POWER
)
COOPERATIVE, INC.
)
)
Petitioner,
)
)
v.
)
PCB 2006-55
)
(CAAPP Permit Appeal)
ILLINOIS
ENVIRONMENTAL
)
PROTECTION AGENCY,
)
)
Respondent.
)
MOTION
FOR EXTENSION OF TIME TO FILE RECORD
NOW COMES the Respondent, ILLINOIS
ENVIRONMENTAL
PROTECTiON
AGENCY (“Illinois EPA”), by and through its attorneys, pursuant to 35 Ill. Adm. Code
105.116
and
moves the iLLINOIS POLLUTiON CONTROL BOARD (“Board”) for an
extension of the time to
file
the
record of its determination
in the above-captioned matter.
I.
Petitioners filed their Petition
with the Board on November
2, 2005,
seeking a review of certain permit conditions contained
within
the Clean Air Act Permit
Program (“CAAPP”) permit
issued to Soyland Power Cooperative,
Inc. (“Soyland”) by
the Illinois EPA on September 29, 2005.
The permit authorized the operation of an
electrical power generation facility located at Highway
100, Peal, Pike County, Illinois.
Formal notice ofthe appeal was served upon the Illinois EPA on November
2, 2005.
2.
On November 17, 2005, the Board accepted Soyland’s Petition
for
hearing.
In addition, the Board ordered the Respondent to file the entire record of its
determination within
30 days of receipt of the Petition.
If an extension of time to file the
record
would be sought by the Respondent, the Board’s order instructed that such request
was
also due within
30 days
after
the Illinois EPA received the Petition.
1
ELECTRONIC
FILING,
RECEIVED, CLERK’S OFFICE,
DECEMBER
1, 2005
3.
The undersigned attorney and a staff paralegal became involved with the
compilation of the administrative record relating to Soyland
as early as mid-August 2005
and since that time, most of this attorney’s and the staff paralegal’s resources have-been
dcvoted to the
compilation of this voluminous
record and related records pertaining to the
twenty CAAPP
permit appeals involving other electrical power generation facilities in
the State.
At
this juncture, Soyland’s record consists generally of five to six thai boxes of
material.
Approximately two to three boxes arc particular to Soyland alone,
while three
other boxes
are more aptly characterized as general reference material and documents
relevant to the decision underlying
the issuance of all twenty-one CAAPP permits to the
State’s electrical power generation
facilities.
The only remaining documents to be
assembled and reviewed for this record
preparation generally consists of several hundred
miscellaneous electronic mail messages of Illinois EPA personnel.
Some,
but not all, of
thesc emails may contain information that were relied
upon
by the Illinois EPA in its
permit decision.
4.
The other assigned attorney, Robb Layman, became involved with the
compilation of the administrative record relating to this proceeding
in November 2005.
Due to
the press of other permit appeals before
the United
States Environmental
Protection Agency’s Environmental Appeals Board (“EAB”) and enforcement case
matters unrelated to
the present
appeal, Mr. Layman
was generallyunable to assist in the
compilation of the record
until this past month.
5.
Due to the sheer magnitude of the documentation underlying the Illinois
EPA’s permitting decision in this matter and the
additional twenty CAAPP permit
appeals, the Illinois EPA was
not able to compile the
entire administrative record on-or
2
ELECTRONIC
FILING,
RECEIVED, CLERKS OFFICE,
DECEMBER
1,2005
before December
2,2005.
Counsel
expects that the compilation of the record
will require
at least
an additional
seven days.
Beyond this point, the timing of the filing of
the
administrative record will
likely be determined by matters
largely outside of counsel’s
control.
6.
First, while counsel
for the Illinois EPA has observed
that many permit
appeals are of a type that could most aptly be described
as “protective appeals” that do
not necessarily require the filing of an administrative record, it is counsel’s estimation
that
some of the collective twenty-one
appeals possess a much greater likelihood of
proceeding to hearing, thus necessitating the filing of an administrative record.
While
this case
is admittedly at the earliest stage of litigation, the permitting of this facility was
based upon years of work by the Bureau of Air’s permitting engineers and countless
communications with this facility and industry representatives at large.
In addition, it
is
also the
Illinois EPA’s perception
that the Board may not wish to accept voluminous
administrative records
in this and all of the other collective CAAPP
appeals unless
it
appears that a settlement resolution cannot be reached.
7.
Second, the
Illinois EPA does not possess the support-staff to make the
necessary copies for
filing before the Board, the assigned Rearing Officer and opposing
counsel.
For instance, ifthe Respondent were to seek leave from the Board for a waiver
of the applicable copying requirements, the Respondent would still be mailing
approximately twenty-five to thirty trial boxes
to the Board for Soyland alone.
This does
not include the five
to
six boxes
that would be required for both the Hearing Officer and
opposing counsel.
Due to these constraints, counsel has been researching the possibility
of hiring an outside contractor to perform the required copying andior screening.
3
ELECTRONIC
FILING,
RECEIVED, CLERK’S OFFICE,
DECEMBER
1,
2005
However,
the State
is limited
by further constraints; for instance, the Illinois EPA
must
first seek to employ a contractor that holds
a State
contract before
tuning to a non-State
contractor for copying services.
While counsel has located State contractors
that would
be’willing
to make
10,000 copies often documents, counsel has not found a State
contractor willing
to
make seven copies of thousands of miscellaneous sized documents.
8.
Based on
the foregoing, the Illinois EPA formally requests an
cxtension of
time to
file its administrative record with the Board to a date
determined by the Board to
be appropriate andlor
consistent with any decisional deadline
in this matter.
9.
The grant of this extension of the filing date will
ensure that this
voluminous record is not needlessly
filed but
filed in the evcnt that the matter does not
settle.
This will
serve to limit the expenditure of constrained State resources on
a
potentially unnecessary copying job.
Moreover, this will further minimize any potential
administrative burdens associated with the maintenance and storage of hundreds of trial
boxes for this appeal, together with the other twenty CAAPP appeals for the Board and
the assigned Hearing Officer.
In addition,
an extension of this time period
will not result
in
any hardship or prejudice to Petitioner.
-
ELECTRONIC
FILING,
RECEIVED, CLERK’S
OFFICE,
DECEMBER
1,
2005
WHEREFORE, the Illinois EPA respectfully requests that the Board grant
this
Motion for Extension
of Time to File Record
to a date determined by the Board to be
appropriate and/or consistent with any decisional deadline in this matter.
Respectfully
submitted by,
ILLINOIS ENVIRONMENTAL
PROTECTION
AGENCY,
Sally Atarter
Assistant Counsel
Illinois Environmental Protection Agency
1021 North Grand
Avenue East
P.O. Box
19276
Springfield, Illinois 62794-9276
(217)782-5544
S
ELECTRONIC
FILING,
RECEIVED, CLERK’S OFFICE,
DECEMBER
1,
2005
CERTIFICATE OF
SERVICE
I
hereby certify that
on
the
Vt day of December
2005,1
did send,
by
electronic
mail with prior approval, the
following instrument entitled MOTION FOR
EXTENSION OF TIME TO FILE RECORD to:
Dorothy Gurin,
Clerk
-
Illinois Pollution Control Board
100
West Randolph Street
Suite
11-500
Chicago,
Illinois 60601
and a true and corrcct copy of the same foregoing instrument, by First Class Mail with
postage thereon fully paid and deposited into the possession of the
United States Postal
Service, to:
Carol Webb
Amy Jackson
Hearing Officer
Rammelkamp Bradncy, P.C.
Illinois Pollution Control Board
232 West State Street
1021
North Grand Avenue East
P.O. Box 550
P.O. Box
19274
Jacksonville, Illinois 62651
Springfield, Illinois 62794
Sally
&“arter
Assistant Counsel
