North Sanitary Landfill, Inc. v. Nichols

471 N.E.2d 492, 14 Ohio App. 3d 331, 14 Ohio B. 398, 1984 Ohio App. LEXIS 11733
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedFebruary 8, 1984
Docket8246
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 471 N.E.2d 492 (North Sanitary Landfill, Inc. v. Nichols) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
North Sanitary Landfill, Inc. v. Nichols, 471 N.E.2d 492, 14 Ohio App. 3d 331, 14 Ohio B. 398, 1984 Ohio App. LEXIS 11733 (Ohio Ct. App. 1984).

Opinion

Per Curiam.

North Sanitary Landfill, Inc. filed a verified complaint pursuant to R.C. 3745.08 with the Director of Environmental Protection on January 20, 1982. The complaint was investigated by the Regional Air Pollution Control' Agency of Montgomery County (RAPCA) and by the Division of Air Pollution Control, Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-. Based on the investigations, the director, determined that the violations alleged in the complaint did not or would not occur, and he therefore dismissed the complaint on April 12, 1982.

By notice of appeal filed May 4, 1982, North Sanitary Landfill appealed the action of the Director of Environmental Protection. Following a de novo hearing on the matter, the Environmental Board of Review issued its findings of fact and final order on February 8, 1983. In its final order, the board found that the action of the director in dismissing the verified complaint was unreasonable and unlawful. The board therefore “vacates the Director’s final action dismissing the Verified Complaint and orders the Director to require the Commission to comply with the PSD, Emission Offset, and Ohio PTI preconstruction review and permitting requirements prior to commencing work on its program to rehabilitate, retrofit and reopen the South Reduction Plant as an incinerator.”

From the order of the Environmental Board of Review, the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners and the Director of Environmental Protection have appealed to this court under R.C. 3745.06. Appellee, North Sanitary Landfill, has not filed a brief in this case. Consequently, pursuant to App. R. 18, we shall accept the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners and the Director of Environmental Protection’s statement of the facts and issues as correct.

Appellants’ statement of the facts recites that Montgomery County owns a refuse handling facility, the South Reduction Plant, located in Moraine, Ohio. The plant, is equipped with two rotary kiln refuse incinerators. The incinerators at the South Reduction Plant commenced operation in 1970. In August 1979, the county suspended operation of the incinerators. The facility is currently being used as a refuse transfer facility.

In 1981, the county, .via resolution, authorized the purchase and construction of “turn-key incinerator air pollu *333 tion control systems” (electrostatic precipitators), and the expenditure of several hundred thousand dollars for maintenance and repair of the incinerators.

Appellants’ statement of the facts also reflects that the county commissioners intended to continue to operate the incinerators at the reduction plant, that any “shutdown” was for maintenance and repair purposes only, and that as soon as the repairs were made the incinerators would resume their operation. The commissioners issued resolutions authorizing and contracting: (1) for the preparation of an incinerator decommissioning report, (2) for repairs to the roof over the incinerators, and (3) advertising for bids for, approving specifications for, declaring the necessity of, declaring the county’s policy towards, and authorizing construction of, electrostatic precipitators and incinerator repairs.

The decommissioning plan received by the county reflected that the county commissioners authorized the Sanitary Engineering Department of the county to implement steps to preserve the incinerators. Among these preservation steps were roof repairs, replacement of doors and windows, repair of water leaks, pipe insulation, motor exercise, and maintenance of minimum building temperatures during winter months. Additionally, correspondence from the Montgomery County Sanitation Department to regulatory agencies reflected a clear intention by the county to continue to use the incinerators, and the Regional Air Pollution Control Agency continued to carry the incinerators on its emission inventories as temporarily shutdown.

The evidence demonstrates that the proposed maintenance and repair of the incinerators will not increase the maximum rate of capacity of the incinerators, the amounts and types of refuse burned, or the actual or allowable levels of air pollutants emitted, or result in the emission of any type of air pollutant not previously emitted, result in relocation of the incinerators, or result in an increase in the maximum permissible through-put or hours of operation.

Finally, the record reflects that the sources of emissions in this case are the incinerators themselves, and not the control devices, i.e., the electrostatic precipitators.

For their first assignment of error, appellants argue:

“The Ohio Environmental Board of Review applied an erroneous standard of review, holding for NSL, Inc. despite the fact that the director’s dismissal of the verified complaint was supported by a valid factual and legal foundation.”

Under the first part of this, assignment of error, appellants maintain that the Environmental Board of Review erred in holding that the incinerators would constitute “new sources” of air pollution subject to preconstruction review under state and federal regulation upon resuming operation.

Ohio Adm. Code 3745-31-02 stated, in pertinent part:

“* * * [N]o person shall cause, permit or allow the installation of a new source of air pollutants * * *; permit or allow modification of any source of air pollutants * * *, without first

“(1) applying for and obtaining a permit to install from the Ohio environmental protection agency.”

“Source” was defined by Ohio Adm. Code 3745-31-01(0):

. «* * * [A]ny machine, device, apparatus, equipment, operation, building, or other physical facility that emits or generates or may emit or generate any air or water pollutant.”

Ohio Adm. Code 3745-31-01(F) defined “new source” as:

“(A) source for which an owner or operator undertakes a continuing program of , installation or modification or enters into a binding contractual obliga *334 tion to undertake and complete, within a reasonable time, a continuing program of installation or modification, after January 1, 1974.”

Federal Prevention of Significant Deterioration regulations, Section 52.21, Title 40, C.F.R., and Emission Offset regulations, Section 51.18, Appendix S(I), Title 40, C.F.R., do not apply to a source installed in 1970.

We note initially that the Environmental Board of Review does not stand in place of the director upon appeal. Rather, the board must determine whether the action appealed from was lawful and reasonable. R.C. 3745.05. The Court of Appeals for Franklin County in Citizens Commt. v. Williams (1977), 56 Ohio App. 2d 61, 69-70 [10 O.O.3d 91], stated:

“Where the evidence demonstrates that the action taken * * * by the Director is reasonable and lawful — that is, the evidence reasonably supports the Director’s action — the board must, in accord with R.C. 3745.05, affirm the Director even though it might have taken different action. The board initially does not stand in place of the Director upon appeal, and is not entitled to substitute its judgment for that of the Director, but is limited to a determination of whether the action taken by the Director is unreasonable or unlawful.

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471 N.E.2d 492, 14 Ohio App. 3d 331, 14 Ohio B. 398, 1984 Ohio App. LEXIS 11733, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/north-sanitary-landfill-inc-v-nichols-ohioctapp-1984.