Section 304.219  North Shore Water Reclamation District Phosphorus Discharges

a)         This Section applies to discharges from the North Shore Water Reclamation District excess flow discharge facilities at Waukegan and North Chicago into Lake Michigan;

b)         The requirements of Section 304.123(a) do not apply to the phosphorus content of the North Shore Water Reclamation District excess flow discharges from Waukegan and North Chicago into Lake Michigan.  Instead, the following requirements apply to North Shore Water Reclamation District discharges into Lake Michigan:

1)         The North Shore Water Reclamation District must not discharge effluent into Lake Michigan from its Waukegan treatment plant until after that plant has achieved its maximum treatment flow capacity and all the Waukegan treatment plant excess flow retention reservoirs are full to capacity;

2)         The North Shore Water Reclamation District must not discharge effluent into Lake Michigan from its North Chicago treatment plant until after that plant has achieved its maximum treatment flow capacity, the North Chicago treatment plant excess flow retention reservoirs are full to capacity, the maximum rate of transfer of untreated effluent to Gurnee has been achieved, the Gurnee treatment plant has achieved its maximum treatment flow capacity, and the Gurnee treatment plant excess flow retention reservoirs are full to capacity.

c)         The North Shore Water Reclamation District must increase the maximum peak treatment flow capacity of its Waukegan treatment plant to at least 44 million gallons per day before January 1, 1992;

d)         The North Shore Water Reclamation District must increase the maximum peak treatment flow capacity of its Gurnee treatment plant to 39 million gallons per day before January 1, 1989;

e)         The North Shore Water Reclamation District must increase the excess flow retention reservoir capacity at its Gurnee treatment plant to 50 million gallons before January 1, 1991;

f)         The North Shore Water Reclamation District must operate its Waukegan or North Chicago treatment plant at its maximum treatment flow capacity during any period in which less than 90 percent of the retention reservoir capacity is available to receive excess flows at the relevant treatment plant, except when the unavailability occurs during normal treatment plant or retention basin maintenance; and

g)         The North Shore Water Reclamation District must, as required under 35 Ill. Adm. Code 309.141, immediately embark on a program to monitor excess flow and water quality impact and must periodically submit the data from the monitoring to the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (Agency).

(Source:  Amended at 47 Ill. Reg. 4601, effective March 23, 2023)