Opinion ID: 2003432
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Count I of the Intervening Plaintiff's Complaint

Text: The appellate court premised its decision to affirm the temporary restraining order issued by the Kane County circuit court on its determination that there was a fair question that SWANCC failed to obtain Kane County siting approval of the balefill as required by section 39(c) and that it failed to notify certain owners within 250 feet of the request for location approval as required by section 39.2(b) of the Act. [8]
As regards the alleged failure to obtain Kane County siting approval, section 39(c) of the Act provides in pertinent part: [N]o permit for the development or construction of a new regional pollution control facility may be granted by the Agency unless the applicant submits proof to the Agency that the location of said facility has been approved by the County Board of the county if in an unincorporated area   . (415 ILCS 5/39(c) (West 1992).) Thus, whether Kane County's approval of the location of the balefill was required in addition to that of Cook County depends upon whether that facility is located in an unincorporated portion of Kane County. SWANCC argues that the Kane County acreage it owns is not part of the balefill pollution control facility and that Kane County siting approval is thus not required under section 39(c) of the Act. In support, SWANCC acknowledges that its initial request for a balefill development permit to the Agency proposed utilizing the 123 Kane County acres for water retention and wetland mitigation purposes. However, after this permit request was denied, SWANCC amended its proposed balefill plan to, inter alia, no longer make use of the Kane County acreage for water retention or any other balefill-related purpose. It was this latter plan that was ultimately approved by the Agency and for which a development permit was issued. Thus, SWANCC asserts that Kane County siting approval is unnecessary under section 39(c) of the Act. Kane County first counters that it does not believe the representations by SWANCC, or for that matter the plans submitted to and approved by the Agency, to the extent they show that no balefill-related activity will take place on the Kane County property. Apart from its bare assertion of distrust, however, Kane County points to no evidence indicating that SWANCC plans to utilize the Kane County property in a manner that would require Kane County approval pursuant to section 39(c). While we agree that Kane County approval would be necessary were the balefill facility to be developed in part on the Kane County property, we will not engage in speculation regarding this contention. Rather, our determination is based solely on the extensive record in this case which evidences that, as of the submission of the second permit application to the Agency, there is neither a plan specifying nor approval for the utilization of the Kane County property as a part of the proposed pollution control facility. Kane County further argues that, as contiguous land, the Kane County acreage is part of a pollution control facility as defined for purposes of the Resource Conservation and Recover Act (RCRA) (42 U.S.C. § 6921 et seq. (1988); 40 C.F.R. § 258.2 (1994)). From this, the intervening plaintiff reasons that the Kane County acreage must also be part of the pollution control facility for purposes of section 39(c)'s local siting requirement because the RCRA establishes minimum guidelines for State governments in enacting laws governing municipal waste sites. The intervening plaintiffs thus conclude that the RCRA facilities definition, which includes contiguous land, should control this court's decision in defining facility for purposes of section 39(c) siting approval. Thereunder, the contiguous Kane County acreage would be part of the balefill facility and Kane County siting approval would be required. However, in support of this argument, the intervening plaintiff cites cases which address the liability of facility owners who have violated the environmental laws as regards contiguous land that has become polluted. (See People v. Teledyne, Inc. (1992), 233 Ill.App.3d 495, 174 Ill.Dec. 688, 599 N.E.2d 472; United Technologies Corp. v. United States Environmental Protection Agency (D.C.Cir.1987), 821 F.2d 714; State v. Presto-X Co. (Iowa 1987), 417 N.W.2d 199; People v. Roth (1985), 129 Misc.2d 381, 492 N.Y.S.2d 971.) None of these cases, however, hold that contiguous but unrelated land is part of a municipal waste facility for other purposes such as siting approval. [9] Moreover, as noted by the Court of Appeals in United Technologies Corp. v. United States Environmental Protection Agency (D.C.Cir. 1987), 821 F.2d 714, 722, the definition of the word facility is contextual, varying from provision to provision in the RCRA. Insofar as the cases cited to this court are inapposite to the issue at hand, and further given that the RCRA does not require local siting approval in the first place, we find Kane County's contiguous land/facilities argument without merit and conclude that SWANCC's mere ownership of the Kane County acreage does not make this acreage part of the balefill for purposes of section 39(c).
Kane County next argues that the Agency was without jurisdiction to issue the development permit because SWANCC did not provide the requisite notice to surrounding landowners pursuant to section 39.2(b) of the Act (415 ILCS 5/39.2(b) (West 1992)). However, section 39.2 by its own terms does not apply to pollution control facilities located within unincorporated Cook County. (415 ILCS 5/39.2(h) (West 1992) ([n]othing in this Section shall apply to any    new    pollution control facility located within an unincorporated area of any county having a population of over 3,000,000).) As noted above, the development plans for the balefill approved by the Agency do not indicate any balefill-related uses for the Kane County property. Accordingly, we hold that SWANCC is exempted from the notice provisions of section 39.2(b) and that the Agency thus had jurisdiction to issue the development permit.