Roxana Landfill, Inc. v. Ill. Pollution Control Bd.
| Decision Date | 25 July 2016 |
| Docket Number | NO. 5-15-0096,5-15-0096 |
| Parties | ROXANA LANDFILL, INC., Petitioner-Appellant, v. ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD; VILLAGE BOARD OF THE VILLAGE OF CASEYVILLE, ILLINOIS; VILLAGE OF CASEYVILLE, ILLINOIS; and CASEYVILLE TRANSFER STATION, LLC, Respondents-Appellees. VILLAGE OF FAIRMONT CITY, ILLINOIS, Petitioner-Appellant, v. ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD; VILLAGE OF CASEYVILLE, ILLINOIS BOARD OF TRUSTEES; and CASEYVILLE TRANSFER STATION, LLC, Respondents-Appellees. |
| Court | United States Appellate Court of Illinois |
NOTICE
Decision filed 07/25/16. The text of this decision may be changed or corrected prior to the filing of a Petition for Rehearing or the disposition of the same.
NOTICE
This order was filed under Supreme Court Rule 23 and may not be cited as precedent by any party except in the limited circumstances allowed under Rule 23(e)(1).
Petition for Review of the Order of the Illinois Pollution Control Board.
PCB Nos. 15-65 & 15-69 (cons.) PRESIDING JUSTICE SCHWARM delivered the judgment of the court.
¶ 1 Held: We affirm the order of the Illinois Pollution Control Board, which held that the Village of Caseyville's determination that the siting applicant had met the criteria for siting a solid waste transfer station within its boundaries was not against the manifest weight of the evidence, that the Village properly exercised jurisdiction over the proceedings, and that the proceedings were fundamentally fair.
¶ 2 Caseyville Transfer Station, LLC (CTS), acquired local siting approval from the Village Board of the Village of Caseyville (the Village) for a solid waste transfer station. Roxana Landfill, Inc. (Roxana Landfill), and the Village of Fairmont City (Fairmont City) appealed the Village's decision to the Illinois Pollution Control Board (the IPCB). The IPCB affirmed the Village's finding that CTS's application met the statutory criteria for siting approval, determined that the Village properly exercised jurisdiction over the proceedings, and concluded that the proceedings were fundamentally fair. Roxana Landfill and Fairmont City appeal. St. Clair, Madison, and Monroe Counties filed an amicus curiae brief, as did Canteen Township. CTS and the Village filed a motion to strike the amicus curiae brief of St. Clair, Madison, and Monroe Counties. We hereby affirm the IPCB's determination. We deny the motion to strike.
¶ 5 On January 15, 2014, CTS, owned by John Siemsen, mailed notice of its intent to file a siting application with the Village to owners of property within 250 feet of the site and to members of the General Assembly from the legislative district in which the sitewas located. On January 23, 2014, CTS published in the Belleville News Democrat the notice, which stated that CTS would file an application for local siting approval with the Village on February 10, 2014. On February 10, 2014, Siemsen personally delivered CTS's application for siting approval to the Caseyville Village Hall.
¶ 6 Pursuant to CTS's application, CTS sought local siting approval to develop a municipal solid waste transfer station, wherein waste collected from residences and businesses by conventional collection vehicles would be transferred into transfer trailers for transport to licensed municipal solid waste landfills for final disposal. The site of CTS's proposed transfer station was located on a five-acre parcel on the southwest corner of the intersection of Bunkum Road and the Harding Ditch, within the Village's municipal boundaries. CTS sought development of a 6,000 square foot transfer station building that could accept 300 tons of non-hazardous municipal solid waste per operating day. CTS anticipated that the waste received by the transfer station would originate principally from residents and businesses located in St. Clair County, while more limited quantities of waste were also expected to be received from residents and businesses in the counties of Madison and Monroe. CTS contemplated that no waste would be stored at the transfer station.
¶ 7 In its application, CTS asserted that the proposed transfer station was expedient and reasonably convenient to serve the waste disposal needs of the service area. CTS proposed that the waste collected would be transferred to landfills outside the service area, resulting in decreased transportation costs and extending the useful life of landfill facilities within the service area.
¶ 8 In its application, CTS also asserted that there were no residential land uses within 1,000 feet of the site. CTS noted, however, that property approximately 1,000 feet to the southeast of the site previously contained residential dwellings but that St. Clair County had acquired these properties under a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) buy-out program, which included permanent deed restrictions prohibiting any future residential development of the parcels 44 C.F.R. § 206.434 (2013).
¶ 9 In its application, CTS further asserted that the site was not located within a 100-year flood plain. CTS attached a Flood Insurance Rate Map (FIRM), showing the proposed site in "Zone X" which was defined on the map as "[a]reas of 0.2% annual chance flood; areas of 1% annual chance flood with average depths of less than 1 foot or with drainage areas less than 1 square mile; and areas protected by levees from 1% annual chance flood." The map legend further defined "Zone X" as an "area protected from the 1% annual chance flood by the Mississippi River Levee System subject to failure during larger floods." The high risk areas, subject to inundation by the 1% annual chance flood event, were identified as "Zone AE" and "Zone AH."
¶ 10 In its application, CTS noted that at the maximum expected daily volume of 300 tons per day, the proposed transfer station would be processing approximately six packer trucks per hour, and each bay would process three trucks per hour or 20 minutes per truck. CTS estimated that eight trucks per hour would be entering and leaving the transfer station. CTS stated that given the light traffic generally experienced by Bunkum Road, the transfer station was not anticipated to impact existing traffic flows.
¶ 11 In its application, CTS noted that the St. Clair County Solid Waste Management Plan (the Plan) had been developed in collaboration with the adjacent counties of Monroe and Madison. CTS noted that the Plan did not address municipal solid waste transfer stations, but CTS asserted that the proposed transfer station was consistent with and furthered the objectives of the Plan. CTS asserted that "by providing for access to landfills outside of St. Clair County and the region, [the transfer station] would help to reduce the degree to which St. Clair County [wa]s an importer of municipal solid waste and extend the remaining life of the local landfills."
¶ 12 CTS attached the Plan to its application. The Plan identified as a concern the transportation of a large proportion of Missouri waste to Illinois landfills because the Illinois landfills charged waste haulers lower tipping fees than their Missouri counterparts. The Plan listed as objectives: source reduction, recycling, and waste-to-energy exploration. The Plan provided that "[a]ny privately developed waste-to-energy facilities where the primary beneficiary is not" the three counties "shall be discouraged." The Plan further provided that "[f]acilities proposed where the primary source of waste is from outside of the three county area shall be considered inconsistent with the solid waste plan." The Plan noted that the region had permitted landfill capacity that met its needs. An attachment to the Plan noted that the waste-to-energy provision of the plan had not been implemented.
¶ 13 The Plan described scenarios investigated in a feasibility study, one of which involved a centrally located waste management park containing a materials recovery facility, a yard waste composting facility, and a relatively large landfill. In the describedscenarios, a landfill would be located at the central waste management park near the centroid of solid waste generation in the three-county area. The common elements of the preferred waste management system were listed as reduction at the source recommendations, the materials recovery facility, and the yard waste composting facility. The Plan recognized that the needs of the counties may require multiple new or expanded existing landfill sites.
¶ 14 CTS also attached to its application the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency's 2012 report on Non-Hazardous Solid Waste Management Capacity in Illinois (the 2012 Landfill Capacity Report). The 2012 Landfill Capacity Report identified three operating landfills within the service area: Cottonwood Hills Recycling and Disposal Facility in Marissa; Milam Recycling and Disposal Facility in East St. Louis; and Roxanna Landfill in Roxana. According to this Landfill Capacity Report, two landfills within the region closed in 2010: the Bond County Landfill in Greenville, Illinois, and the Salem Municipal Landfill in Salem, Illinois. Pursuant to the 2012 Landfill Capacity Report, landfills within the region reported that capacity had decreased by more than 11.1 million gate cubic yards, providing for a landfill capacity decrease of 8.8%. The 2012 Landfill Capacity Report indicated that the region had a landfill capacity life of 16 years and that only one Illinois Environmental Protection Agency region had a shorter remaining landfill life.
¶ 15 In its application, CTS further noted that the landfill capacity remaining in regional landfills was not dedicated to or reserved for the waste management needs of the service area, in that the regional landfills received 43% of accepted waste from out ofstate. The Cottonwood Hills landfill projected a closure date of 2064; however, 72% of the waste it accepted in 2011 originated from outside Illinois. The 2012 Landfill Capacity Report stated...
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