BP wants to pollute the lake-Thread, How much more pollution in the lake would you like? |
BP wants to pollute the lake-Thread, How much more pollution in the lake would you like? |
Jul 16 2007, 09:19 AM
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Spends WAY too much time at CBTL Group: Admin Posts: 16,426 Joined: 8-December 06 From: Michigan City, IN Member No.: 2 |
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi...ll=chi-news-hed
QUOTE BP gets break on dumping in lake Refinery expansion entices Indiana By Michael Hawthorne Tribune staff reporter Published July 15, 2007 The massive BP oil refinery in Whiting, Ind., is planning to dump significantly more ammonia and industrial sludge into Lake Michigan, running counter to years of efforts to clean up the Great Lakes. Indiana regulators exempted BP from state environmental laws to clear the way for a $3.8 billion expansion that will allow the company to refine heavier Canadian crude oil. They justified the move in part by noting the project will create 80 new jobs. Under BP's new state water permit, the refinery -- already one of the largest polluters along the Great Lakes -- can release 54 percent more ammonia and 35 percent more sludge into Lake Michigan each day. Ammonia promotes algae blooms that can kill fish, while sludge is full of concentrated heavy metals. The refinery will still meet federal water pollution guidelines. But federal and state officials acknowledge this marks the first time in years that a company has been allowed to dump more toxic waste into Lake Michigan. BP, which aggressively markets itself as an environmentally friendly corporation, is investing heavily in Canadian crude oil to reduce its reliance on sources in the Middle East. Extracting petroleum from the thick goop is a dirtier process than conventional methods. It also requires more energy that could significantly increase greenhouse gases linked to global warming. Environmental groups and dozens of neighbors pleaded with BP to install more effective pollution controls at the nation's fourth-largest refinery, which rises above the lakeshore about 3 miles southeast of the Illinois-Indiana border. "We're not necessarily opposed to this project," said Lee Botts, founder of the Alliance for the Great Lakes. "But if they are investing all of these billions, they surely can afford to spend some more to protect the lake." State and federal regulators, though, agreed last month with the London-based company that there isn't enough room at the 1,400-acre site to upgrade the refinery's water treatment plant. The company will now be allowed to dump an average of 1,584 pounds of ammonia and 4,925 pounds of sludge into Lake Michigan every day. The additional sludge is the maximum allowed under federal guidelines. Company officials insisted they did everything they could to keep more pollution out of the lake. "It's important for us to get our product to market with minimal environmental impact," said Tom Keilman, a BP spokesman. "We've taken a number of steps to improve our water treatment and meet our commitments to environmental stewardship." BP can process more than 400,000 barrels of crude oil daily at the plant, which was built in 1889 by John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Co. Total production is expected to grow by 15 percent by the time the expansion project is finished in 2011. In sharp contrast to the greenways and parks that line Lake Michigan in Chicago, a string of industrial behemoths lie along the heavily polluted southern shore just a few miles away. The steady flow of oil, grease and chemicals into the lake from steel mills, refineries and factories -- once largely unchecked -- drew national attention that helped prompt Congress to pass the Clean Water Act during the early 1970s. Paul Higginbotham, chief of the water permits section at the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, said that when BP broached the idea of expanding the refinery, it sought permission to pump twice as much ammonia into the lake. The state ended up allowing an amount more than the company currently discharges but less than federal or state limits. He said regulators still are unsure about the ecological effects of the relatively new refining process BP plans to use. "We ratcheted it down quite a bit from what it could have been," Higginbotham said. The request to dump more chemicals into the lake ran counter to a provision of the Clean Water Act that prohibits any downgrade in water quality near a pollution source even if discharge limits are met. To get around that rule, state regulators are allowing BP to install equipment that mixes its toxic waste with clean lake water about 200 feet offshore. Actively diluting pollution this way by creating what is known as a mixing zone is banned in Lake Michigan under Indiana law. Regulators granted BP the first-ever exemption. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been pushing to eliminate mixing zones around the Great Lakes on the grounds that they threaten humans, fish and wildlife. Yet EPA officials did not object to Indiana's decision, agreeing with the state that BP's project would not harm the environment. Federal officials also did not step in when the state granted BP another exemption that enables the company to increase water pollution as long as the total amount of wastewater doesn't change. BP said its flow into Lake Michigan will remain about 21 million gallons a day. In response to public protests, state officials justified the additional pollution by concluding the project will create more jobs and "increase the diversity and security of oil supplies to the Midwestern United States." A rarely invoked state law trumps anti-pollution rules if a company offers "important social or economic benefits." In the last four months, more than 40 people e-mailed comments to Indiana officials about BP's water permit. One of the few supportive messages came from Kay Nelson, environmental director of the Northwest Indiana Forum, an economic development organization that includes a BP executive among its board of directors. She hailed the company's discussions with state and community leaders as a model for others to follow. Nearly all of the other comments, though, focused on the extra pollution in Lake Michigan. "This is exactly the type of trade-off that we can no longer allow," wrote Shannon Sabel of West Lafayette, Ind. "Possible lower gas prices (I'll believe that when I see it!) against further contamination of our water is as shortsighted as it is irrational." --------- mhawthorne@tribune.com |
Aug 3 2007, 07:30 AM
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Spends WAY too much time at CBTL Group: Admin Posts: 16,426 Joined: 8-December 06 From: Michigan City, IN Member No.: 2 |
http://thenewsdispatch.com/main.asp?Sectio...;ArticleID=2804
QUOTE EPA Won't Stop BP Refinery Wastewater Permit The Associated Press The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will not stop a permit that allows a BP refinery in Indiana to dump more pollution into Lake Michigan because it complies fully with the Clean Water Act, the agency's chief says. EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson said Tuesday he saw nothing wrong with the permit Indiana regulators awarded in June to BP, the first company in years allowed to increase the amount of toxic chemicals pumped into the Great Lakes. Although the federal government has been pushing for more than three decades to eliminate pollution in the Great Lakes, the EPA did not object to the BP permit. Johnson told The Chicago Tribune in a brief interview Tuesday after a speech at the Chicago Cultural Center that the agency is trying to "work collaboratively" with BP and other companies to improve the condition of the Great Lakes. "In this case, it's my understanding that Indiana issued a permit that is fully compliant with the Clean Water Act. As an agency we need to honor that permit," he said. BP, one of the largest polluters of the Great Lakes, won permission from state regulators in June for its Whiting refinery to discharge into the lake 54 percent more ammonia and 35 percent more suspended solids _ silty materials left after wastewater is treated and filtered. BP needed the permit to move ahead with a $3.8 billion refinery expansion to process more heavy Canadian crude oil at the refinery, which is the nation's fourth largest. The permit gives BP until 2012 to meet a stringent standard for mercury pollution set by the EPA in 1995. In recent years, the EPA has repeatedly stated a goal of "virtually eliminating" pollution in the Great Lakes. Asked how the BP permit squares with that goal, Johnson noted the agency spends hundreds of thousands of dollars each year cleaning up polluted sites around the lakes. Last week, the House of Representatives voted 387-26 to approve a resolution urging Indiana to reconsider the permit. A coalition of lawmakers implored Johnson last week to put the permit on hold while BP considers additional upgrades. They question why the EPA is allowing BP to increase the amount of pollution it puts into the lake even as the agency addresses years of past contamination. And they demanded to know why EPA officials signed off on the permit when the Clean Water Act prohibits any decline in water quality, even when limits on pollution discharges are met. "The administrator's comments aren't surprising, but they are unacceptable," said U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., one of the lawmakers threatening to punish BP in pending legislation unless the company finds a way to reduce pollution from its refinery. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, a Republican and former Bush administration official, has defended the permit, saying it was in compliance with state law. And Tom Easterly, the Indiana Department of Environmental Management commissioner, said the permit imposes even tougher requirements than federal law because Indiana has designated the lake an outstanding state resource deserving special protection. Meanwhile, a public hearing on a request by BP for a variance on airborne emissions at its refinery in Whiting was postponed because state officials were concerned people would confuse it with BP's new wastewater permit. "We saw the potential for there to be confusion about the hearing," IDEM spokeswoman Amy Hartsock said Wednesday. "There was that possibility that folks might attend thinking it's about the wastewater permit and it's not." Hartsock said the postponed hearing on air quality at the refinery, which has not been rescheduled, has nothing to do with the refinery expansion. |
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