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To:
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Chemical Industry Council of Illinois (CICI) Members
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From:
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Mark Biel, Chief Executive Officer
[email protected] or 217/522-5805
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Re:
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Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update - USEPA, IEPA to Halt Discretionary Enforcement Policy August 31; Update on COVID-19 Cases
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USEPA, IEPA to Halt Discretionary Enforcement Policy August 31: Earlier this week, the USEPA released this memo announcing that the agency will be terminating, effective August 31, 2020, their policy concerning discretionary enforcement. Because of this federal action, and the fact that Illinois has moved into Phase 4 of the state’s re-opening plan, the IEPA will also be terminating their discretionary enforcement policy on the same date. Both the USEPA and the IEPA believe this should allow for sufficient time to resume operations in a manner that will meet full compliance with applicable requirements and also avoid any inconsistencies in terms of state and federal oversight of compliance. After August 31, the USPA and the IEPA will resume full and normal enforcement of laws and regulations under its jurisdiction.
The IEPA released this statement of its discretionary enforcement decision, which also contains a list of requests and inquiries received by the IEPA related to environmental compliance expectations. This list will be updated weekly until August 31, 2020.
Update on COVID-19 Cases: There are currently 144,882 positive cases of COVID-19 in Illinois, an average increase of 784 new cases per day since reported here 9 days ago on June 23. In total, 1,666,317 people have now been tested in Illinois for the virus, an average increase of 29,645 tests per day since June 23.
Unfortunately, since then,IDPH is reporting a total of 6,987 deaths, an average increase of 31 per day since June 23.
Since June 23, the average statewide positivity rate is at 2.6%. IDPH’s webpage tracks positivity and hospitalization rates for the state’s four regions.
You can check where these cases are occurring at the State of Illinois COVID-19 website which also contains more information on this outbreak. Also, IDPH has a case breakdown of the number of positive cases in Chicago and each county relative to the number of fatalities. The IDPH website also now includes a breakdown of the cases under each zip code in the state. In addition, Western Illinois University has an put together this Map of COVID-19 Cases in Illinois & Surrounding States which gives you picture of where COVID-19 cases are occurring in relation to areas surrounding Illinois.
Worldometer also has a site with pertinent statistics on a state by state breakdown and comparison. Also, the City of Chicago has a good categorization of the cases within the city.
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