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[Southsider2k12]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi...ll=chi-news-hed

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."

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mhawthorne@tribune.com

[Southsider2k12]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/c...0,6312287.story

Refinery pollution may soar
Midwest projects would increase emission up to 40%

By Michael Hawthorne | TRIBUNE REPORTER
February 12, 2008

Global-warming pollution from Midwest oil refineries is expected to soar by as much as 40 percent during the next decade, a dramatic increase that runs counter to regional and national efforts to curb heat-trapping gases.

Expansion plans at the BP refinery in Whiting would boost the facility's greenhouse-gas emissions to 5.8 million tons a year, the company told the Tribune. That would be equivalent to adding 320,000 cars to the nation's highways.

While greenhouse gases from the tailpipes of cars get the most attention, the refineries that keep cars and trucks running also contribute to global warming. Fuel must be burned to make gasoline from oil, generating carbon-dioxide pollution.

The huge increases in greenhouse gases are a largely hidden consequence of an industrywide trend to buy more Canadian crude. Vast reserves of tar-soaked clay and sand lying under the swampy forests of northern Alberta are seen as a profitable and reliable source of oil, but the heavy petroleum requires more energy to process.

Other oil companies declined to discuss projected increases in global-warming pollution, but researchers have calculated that refining the Canadian petroleum produces 15 percent to 40 percent more carbon dioxide emissions than conventional oil.

With no greenhouse-gas regulations in place, the companies face no costs for the extra pollution they will churn into the atmosphere.

"This is a glaring example of how our energy policy and climate policy are at cross purposes," said Judi Greenwald, director of innovative solutions at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. "Companies are making decisions that really don't make sense on a national level when you fail to take climate change into account."

The industry's move toward heavy petroleum comes as oil companies aggressively promote their investments in renewable energy and involvement in efforts to fight global warming.

More than two dozen large corporations, including BP and ConocoPhillips, pledged last year to slow and eventually reverse the rapid growth in pollution that is heating up the planet. Yet BP, ConocoPhillips and other oil companies have not addressed emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in refinery air permits pending before federal and state environmental agencies.

Government officials, for their part, have largely ignored questions about how massive refinery projects in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota and Ohio could affect greenhouse-gas emissions. The Midwest already is responsible for a fourth of the nation's output, according to industry estimates and academic researchers.

So far, BP is the only oil company willing to discuss the projected increase in carbon-dioxide emissions from its move to process Canadian crude.

"We're trying to provide a secure, reliable source of fuel for the region," said Bill Gerwing, manager of regulatory affairs for BP America. "It's a game that everyone is getting into."

In the past decade, BP has tried to set itself apart from industry rivals with environmentally friendly advertising that re-brands its corporate initials as "Beyond Petroleum" rather than British Petroleum.

A recent BP ad touts attempts to supply "cleaner energy to homes and businesses across the country."

BP and ConocoPhillips also are among a group of large corporations that last year called for "strong national legislation to require significant reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions."

"We take climate change very, very seriously," said Gerwing. "And we are willing to pay for our emissions with offsets. We've built those costs into every one of our projects."

But because the government does not regulate greenhouse gases, there is no way to ensure oil companies keep such pledges or to encourage them to cut back on emissions.

Global-warming pollution isn't mentioned in a proposed air permit for BP's Whiting refinery, which is being expanded to process more Canadian oil. By contrast, BP's attempt last summer to increase the amount of pollutants the refinery puts into Lake Michigan was outlined in a water permit required under the federal Clean Water Act. BP later backed down after a deluge of protests prompted by Tribune stories.

Throughout the Midwest, refinery projects are moving forward as politicians debate whether global-warming pollution should be limited for the first time. The discussion is driven by mounting evidence that continued increases in greenhouse-gas emissions could result in weather changes.

Leading presidential candidates in both parties back a system that would cap carbon-dioxide emissions and let companies trade the right to keep polluting.

nder legislation proposed in Congress, large polluters would need to buy allowances from cleaner sources to remain below the national limit on emissions.

States also are taking action. In November, the governors of six Midwest states vowed to set up their own regional trading program, similar to one already in place in the Northeast.

With oil prices soaring, many leading climate scientists and environmental groups are calling for action that would offset the financial incentives to process heavy Canadian crude. They want a national policy that takes the price of carbon emissions into account.

"If carbon isn't considered in these huge investments, we are going to be stuck with a tremendous burden," said Henry Henderson, a former Chicago environment commissioner who now heads the Natural Resources Defense Council's Midwest office.

A cap-and-trade system is one way to do that. Another is setting standards that require greater reliance on low-carbon fuels.

A California initiative considers all greenhouse gases produced during fuel production, from pollution released as oil is pumped from the ground to the exhaust from tailpipes.

A national version of that standard would mean oil companies could still make fuels derived from the oil sands, but they would have to balance the higher emissions with lower-carbon products, said Alex Farrell, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley.

The incentive also could prod oil companies to find ways to make the refining process more energy-efficient.

"The climate change problem isn't going away and is just going to get worse," Farrell said. "Developing the oil sands isn't going to help."

Illinois is among a dozen states considering a low-carbon fuel standard.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich has set a goal of cutting greenhouse gases in Illinois by 25 percent by 2020.

Yet the state failed to address global-warming pollution in a draft air permit it gave ConocoPhillips to convert its Wood River refinery in Downstate Roxana to process Canadian oil. Nor is the issue part of the discussions about refinery projects in other Midwest states.

Most state environmental officials contend they can't act unless Congress provides explicit authority to regulate global-warming pollution.

The exception is California, where Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown pressured ConocoPhillips to offset its carbon-dioxide emissions and make a refinery expansion carbon-neutral.

"If ConocoPhillips can do this in California, they and the other oil companies can do it in Illinois and every other state," said Howard Learner, president of the Environmental Law and Policy Center. "They should be cleaning up now rather than later."

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mhawthorne@tribune.com