The Illinois Pollution Control Board recently issued its Environmental Register for May 2013.  The Environmental Register features a letter from Board Chairman Thomas Holbrook, which summarizes the activity that the Board has conducted in several rulemaking dockets.  Two rulemaking dockets of particular interest are:

The Illinois Pollution Control Board recently issued its Environmental Register for February 2013.  The Environmental Register features a letter from Board Chairman Thomas Holbrook, which summarizes the activity that the Board has conducted in several rulemaking dockets. The Environmental Register also contains a rulemaking update, including a summary of the Board's adoption of a first notice opinion and order proposing two designations of aquatic life use ("ALU") for the Chicago Area Waterway System ("CAWS") and Lower Des Plaines River ("LDPR").  ALUs are assigned to individual waterbody segments based upon the potential to support that use according to narrative and numerical criteria.  Water quality criteria are developed, monitoring is conducted, and assessments are made to determine whether waterbodies attain those uses.  Here is how the Board describes the two designations proposed in the rulemaking:

You're invited to register for "Adding Value with Environmental Law", which is sponsored by the Chicago Bar Association's Environmental Law Committee.  This is the CBA's annual environmental seminar and will take place this Wednesday, March 20th, from 3pm to 6pm at the Chicago Bar Association, 321 S. Plymouth Court.  As a reminder, here's the description of this great program:

The Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson, has announced that she will be leaving the Obama administration after the President's State of the Union Address in early 2013:

The Asian Carp lawsuit hit another bump in the road recently, when the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois dismissed the plaintiffs' complaint and expressed skepticism on whether the case could continue.  In that case, Michigan v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, No. 10 C 4457 (N.D. Ill.), a group of states bordering the Great Lakes sought an order requiring the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago to take action, including immediately creating physical barriers in the waterways connecting Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River Basin, to prevent Asian carp from migrating into Lake Michigan.  Plaintiffs argued that Defendants' failure to install physical barriers to physically separate the waterways will cause a public nuisance--i.e., the invasion of Asian carp--resulting in grave and irreversible environmental and economic harm to the entire Great Lakes region.

I thought everyone would be interested in the following update from the Illinois Manufacturers' Association concerning fracking legislation in the Illinois General Assembly: "Following another marathon negotiating session that resulted in little movement between industry and the environmental community, several key state lawmakers met privately and intend to develop their own proposal that will be unveiled in the coming weeks.   This bipartisan group will likely use the industry draft proposal that was developed collaboratively by the Illinois Manufacturers' Association along with our partners in the Illinois Petroleum Council, Illinois Oil & Gas Association, Chamber of Commerce, and America's Natural Gas Alliance over the past several months and refined during negotiations as a base for the final bill.   With time winding down on the legislative session, the House of Representatives moved SB 3280 from the Rules Committee to the floor for possible use.  After dozens of meetings and hours of negotiations with industry, environmentalists, Governor's Administration and Attorney General, the IMA expects key lawmakers to author final tweaks to the bill before moving forward.

The Illinois Pollution Control Board recently issued its Environmental Register for October 2012.  The Environmental Register features a letter from Board Chairman Thomas Holbrook, which summarizes the activity that the Board has conducted in several rulemaking dockets. The Environmental Register also contains a rulemaking update, including a summary of the Board's adoption of final amendments to groundwater quality rules: "The final rules update to Part 620 is based upon new scientific data, federal rules, and technical references. Among other things, groundwater quality standards are added for 39 chemical constituents detected in Illinois groundwater that have toxicity values established by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) or that have groundwater remediation objectives under the Tiered Approach to Corrective Action Objectives (TACO). Additionally, the Class I groundwater quality standard for arsenic is revised to reflect the new federal Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL). The amendments adopted by the Board are substantively unchanged from those proposed at first and second notice."  Click here for more detailed information on these new rules.