Environmental Progress - Summer 1997

Legal Counsel Side-Bars

New Great Lakes Toxic Standards Aim for Greater Consistency Among States

In accordance with U.S. EPA's Final Water Quality Guidance for the Great Lakes System, the Illinois EPA has proposed new water quality standards for Lake Michigan.

Nearly six years of developmental work by various government, industry and citizen groups lead to adoption of the federal guidance in March 1995. The guidance sets minimum program requirements for water quality and NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) permitting procedures to implement those standards within the Great Lakes Basin. It addresses toxicity in a comprehensive manner to provide a sound scientific basis for setting water quality limits designed to protect aquatic life, human health and wildlife, as well as additional anti-degradation policies aimed at persistent toxic substances that bio-accumulate in the food chain.

Illinois, like the other seven Great Lakes states, already has standards on the books to address toxic substances. The new federal requirements essentially will result in updating each state's program consistent with the latest science while achieving a much greater level of consistency among the states.

In Illinois, efforts to protect Lake Michigan date back nearly a century. Construction of the Sanitary and Ship Canal reversed the flow of the Chicago River and diverted most wastewater discharges out of Lake Michigan in 1905. Today, only a few wastewater sources discharge effluent into the lake.

The Illinois Pollution Control Board conducted public hearings in May and July on the proposed standards. Final Board action on the proposal could come by fall or early winter, 1997.

Companion to the new standards will be new permitting procedures the Agency is developing to guide issuance of NPDES permits for discharges within the Lake Michigan basin. The procedures have been distributed in draft form to affected dischargers in the basin and to interested citizen groups for review and comment prior to initiation of formal adoption as Agency operating rules. Adoption of these rules is also expected to be completed within the fall/early winter time frame.

N. Chicago Firm Agrees To Penalty, Corrective Actions

Emco Chemical Distributors, Inc., North Chicago, blends, packages and distributes chemicals, most of which contain volatile organic materials (VOMs). The operation includes approximately 82 chemical storage tanks, five filling lines, a waste water treatment system, a truck loading area and a truck cleaning area. The facility was referred to the Illinois Attorney General's Office in July 1991 for air permit condition violations, reporting and record keeping violations and VOM emissions in excess of permitted limits.

To resolve the enforcement case, Emco agreed to pay a civil penalty and to complete two supplemental environmental projects (SEPs), to mitigate the state's penalty demand which was reduced to $22,080. The first project will install an ozonation injection system to reduce levels of biochemical oxygen demand, total suspended solids and chemical oxygen demand in Emco's waste water. An initial feasibility study showed introducing these chemicals into the combined wastewater streams achieved the desired results by destroying dissolved organic compounds.

As a further part of the settlement, Emco will install at its bulk loading area five additional chemical transfer pumps that can be dedicated to individual products, reducing the need to flush the pumps with solvent at each product changeover and reducing hazardous waste.

The settlement agreement was approved by the Illinois Pollution Control Board on June 5, 1997.

Final LUST Rules Adopted

On March 6, 1997, the Pollution Control Board issued its final order adopting revised regulations of Petroleum Leaking Underground Storage Tanks that were proposed by the Illinois EPA on Sept. 15, 1996. The order became effective July 1, 1997, to coincide with the effective date of the Tiered Approach to Corrective Action Objectives (TACO).

The amendments to the regulations contain new procedures for determining remediation objectives and cross-referenced the TACO rules proposed under 35 Ill. Adm. Code 742.

The amendments also proposed a third method for classifying a site, designed to analyze risks to determine how the site should be classified. In addition to the existing classifications of "low priority," "high priority," or "no further action," an alternate classification system will identify some sites only as either "high priority" or "no further action."

Many of the amendments were designed to promote more cost-effective site remediation while assuring protection of human health.

Hearings on the proposal were held on November 18, 1996, in Chicago and December 9, 1996, in Springfield.