Court Opinion

ID: 9709036
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 03:38:39.192314+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:45.515673
License: Public Domain

SUPPLEMENTAL OPINION UPON DENIAL OF REHEARING Mr. JUSTICE KARNS delivered the opinion of the court: Petitioner, Central Illinois Public Service Company, seeks a rehearing, alleging various points of error or ambiguity in our opinion. We find the petitioners arguments of error unfounded but will address ourselves to the question of whether our decision is in the nature of an interlocutory order.  As stated in the opinion, the issue before us is a narrow one: Whether the Board can require petitioner to submit effluent data of discharges from petitioner’s plant into Coffeen Lake. Our decision is that the Board properly refused to grant an operating permit to petitioner solely because petitioner failed to comply with the application requirements of .the Illinois Water Pollution Control Rules. Any discussion of the influent or effluent discharges from petitioner’s facility into Coffeen Lake and from said lake in the Board’s orders we regard as surplusage, and not part of the Board’s decision. This decision, perforce, holds that Coffeen Lake, admittedly an artificial impoundment of water within the State, is a “water of the State” within the statute (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1973, ch. 111½, par. 1003(o)), and, therefore, within the jurisdiction of the Pollution Control Board and subject to its power of reasonable regulation. However, we are not remanding this cause to the Environmental Protection Agency to allow petitioner to file a proper application for a permit, a result which petitioner claims would be an interlocutory order. Petitioner may now wish to submit a complete application -for a permit; however, that is a decision for it to make, and we consider petitioner’s request for -remand most unusual as the finality of our decision would tiren depend on petitioner’s discretion and judgment. Therefore, the petition for rehearing is denied and the decision of the Pollution Control Board is affirmed. Petitioners application for certificate of importance is also denied. EBERSPACHER, J., concurs.