R2015-103 APPROVING A CONSENT ORDER TO SETTLE ALL CLAIMS IN A CITIZENS' COMPLAINT

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soils. This is to prevent water and other liquids from other waste subsequently disposed of on top of the MGP waste from leaking into the MGP waste. * CLI agrees to have properly licensed environmental testing professionals test the groundwater at the Clinton Landfill for the presence of toxic chemicals commonly found in MGP wastes on a semiannual basis. Tests are to be conducted for the remaining operational life of the chemical waste unit and for the post-closure period of time (under current law a minimum of 30 years) and to provide those test results to the IEPA. * The State of Illinois, through the Illinois Attorney General's Office and the IEPA, reserve the right to pursue any future criminal or civil violations related to any future contamination of the environment from the MGP wastes already accepted at the Clinton Landfill, and any remedies available under the law, including but not limited to the removal of the waste material causing the contamination. The Order will be recorded with the DeWitt County Clerk and Recorder of Deeds and will constitute a covenant running with the land which will make it applicable and binding to all owners, successor owners or anyone else interested now or in the future in the land. An organized citizens group, WATCH, has raised questions and concerns about this Order. The following are some of the most frequently asked. QUESTION: The decree would require the Landfill to test for certain organic compounds (benzene, toluene, naphthalene, pyrene, ...) which are in MGP waste, and that's good. However it doesn't include testing for other inorganic compounds - including cyanide, lead, mercury, chromium, arsenic, and a dozen-odd others. ANSWER: The permit requires sampling for each of these contaminants. See http://www.epa.state.il.us/communitv-relations/fact-sheets/clinton-3/permit-modification- 2014-07-31.pdf which is the current permit for the site, including the chemical waste area. Groundwater monitoring starts on pages 47 - 62; section VIII. That is 15 pages of groundwater monitoring requirements. On page 55, a list of parameters to be sampled includes the items listed. Cyanide, lead,mercury, chromium and arsenic are each listed in the permit for GW monitoring. The entire permit groundwater sampling was NOT put into the Order; the MGP main constituents were listed. We did not want to have a possibility that the MGP sampling criteria would fall out of a future permit, after the CLI quit accepting MGP wastes. QUESTION: Testing would be(at least) semi-annual, which may sound good,but variations of some chemicals between their quarterly samples can be enormous - tenfold or more- so sparse sampling could easily miss important spikes. ANSWER: The 15 pages of groundwater monitoring in the permit are not sparse. It is exacting. It is demanding. It will likely be ongoing for over 60 years. Here today, gone